


City of Songs

by pendrecarc



Category: The Divine Cities Series - Robert Jackson Bennett
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Pre-Series, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5341202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/pseuds/pendrecarc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine years before she sets foot in Bulikov, Shara Komayd is dispatched to Voortyashtan to investigate the murder of a military deserter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Odry is Going Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



> Contains canon-typical violence, but it is not described as graphically as in canon.
> 
> Isis, when I got your letter, I was beyond thrilled to see a request for this (previously) non-existent fandom. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing!

The Dreyling bouncer is head-and-shoulders taller than Odry. Not just taller than the average half-starved Continental or slender Saypuri, not just as big as any of the other mountain migrants still trickling south through Voortyashtan, but too tall to fit comfortably in the entryway. It’s uncomfortable for Odry, anyway. He finds himself hunching his shoulders as he spreads his arms to be frisked.

If the bouncer feels at all cramped, Odry can’t read it in his dead, one-eyed gaze.

He grits his teeth and endures the pat-down. He has to surrender his knife and watches with regret as it it disappears into a locked cabinet. He’s been carrying it since he heard about Lenya, and he doesn’t like to do without it now.

Released, Odry sidles past the giant and opens the door. A blast of sound escapes first—mostly male voices, but women mixed in, too. There’s a chorus of raucous laughter and the usual low-level chatter, and over it all a throaty voice of indistinguishable gender winds its way around a clatter of drums and under the brassy throb of a trumpet.

Then a cloud of warm, smoky air washes over his face, smelling of cigars and cigarettes and greasy, well-spiced food. He glances back at the bouncer, but the man has moved on to the next customer and has probably forgotten Odry exists. Has hopefully forgotten he exists. Odry steps inside.

He’s never been here before, but he has heard of Valeriya’s. The clientele is mostly Saypuri, and those are mostly military or, like Odry himself, ex-military. He sidesteps the odd bearded Continental, his imagination supplying the stench of potato wine, and looks around until he finds the door he was told to use. It leads to a private back room where he sits in the booth and orders tea, feeling out of place in his patched coat and the mittens he does not plan to take off yet. The tea tastes stale. It comes with a splash of something stronger, though, and his stomach settles.

When someone slides into the seat across from him, it starts jumping again. The person he’s meeting turns out to be a woman, which does not surprise him, and Continental, which does. “Good evening,” she says. “I hope you’re hungry.” Before he can respond, the table is covered in plates of fried potato dumplings, skewers of sizzling chicken marinated to a dark brown, and slabs of a many-layered flatbread arranged around a dish of fragrant oil. _Not_ butter, and he gets a good whiff of garlic from the chicken.

It smells incredibly good. Usually he wouldn’t hesitate to start shoveling it in, but now he just stares as the woman across him bites into a piece of chicken and pulls it off the skewer with her teeth.

She’s in her forties. Maybe fifties, but it’s hard to tell with Continentals—they age so quickly. Stocky frame, strong features, greying hair pulled back in a neat bun. She seems more interested in the food than she is in him.

“You’re not hungry, then.” Her Voortyashtani accent is heavy enough to be clear even around her second mouthful of chicken.

He tries to ignore the churning in his gut. “I didn’t come here to eat.”

“That’s unfortunate,” she says, and swallows. “I have a new chef, and the things she can do with a deep fryer are practically—well. I suppose I can still call them inhuman, can’t I?” She smiles. There’s no real mirth in it. “You’ll have more tea, though?” She nods to someone he can’t see, and a fresh cup appears at his elbow.

“You own this place?” The thought is reassuring. He knows women who are as comfortable with violence as any man—he served six years under Turyin Mulaghesh, after all—but he can’t see himself getting stabbed in a back alley by a middle-aged restauranteur.

She tears off a piece of flatbread. “I do, in fact. But I don’t think you’re here to talk about that, either. Did you bring it with you?”

“Yes.” Odry reaches for the tea, mostly to have something to do with his own hands. This second cup is brewed dark and bitter, and the something stronger is more than a splash. It burns on its way down. “Do you have the money?”

“Of course. May I see it?”

“You first.” His mouth is dry, despite the tea.

The woman—Valeriya?—shrugs and reaches into a pocket, pulling out a small leather wallet and handing it across the table. It is just a little greasy from her fingertips. He flips through it, then sets it down when he’s sure it’s as much as he asked for. Enough for passage home, and enough to disappear once he’s there. Relief does not flood through him so much as creep, a warm and comfortable numbness spreading out from his chest.

“Your turn,” the woman tells him.

He had his pocket picked last week, and that taught him caution. Caution Lenya always said he needed to learn—she said that again when they split their resources and parted ways two months ago, but he isn’t the one who got himself killed, is he? Tonight, he was careful, and he did not leave the one thing of value he still owns in his pocket. He takes his thick woolen mittens off, first the right, and then the left. The second reveals a gleam of cold metal, an odd fingerless glove.

Odry slips it off his wrist, feeling oddly clumsy, and passes it across the table. Maybe it’s just his imagination, but he thinks her hand trembles a little.

The glove is made of iron bands that shift smoothly over one another, writhing like a snake in her palm. She’s turned so her body is between the room and her prize, shielding it from the light, but he can just see the glint of the small ruby shards embedded in each curl of metal.

“Yes,” she says. Odry can just hear her over the low buzzing in his ears. “Yes, very good. Now tell me,” she says, leaning toward him.

That wonderful numbness has reached his limbs now, too. He sinks back into the booth, at ease for the first time since—he can’t remember when he started to worry, but it doesn’t matter now. Odry is going home.

The food is as good as she said it would be, and the tea not so bitter after the fifth or sixth cup. When the plates are cleared, Odry stands up, swaying a little on his feet. The woman--did she mention her name?—smiles as he pushes his hands deep into his pockets. The key to his apartment is in one, and the other is stuffed with more money than he’s seen in months. He smiles at that, then frowns. Was he carrying something else with him? He can’t quite remember, so it must not have been important.

He weaves his way toward the exit and gets shoved once or twice for his pains. He’s not feeling quite so comfortable now. His head is thick, and his gut is churning. Again? He can’t remember that, either.

Eventually Odry reaches the door. It opens to a row of buttons on a dark, massive shirt just at eye level. He turns away.

“Wait,” says a rumbling voice in a Dreyling accent. “This is yours.”

A knife appears in front of his face. He freezes, then realizes it’s being held out hilt-first. He reaches for it, misses, and tries again. This time he grasps it and turns at once to go. He can feel the bouncer’s eye on him as he stumbles into the deserted street.

Much as Odry hates Voortyashtan, it’s never really turned his stomach before tonight. The walk to his dirt-cheap, hideously cold apartment is like something out of a nightmare. He slips across uneven, ice-covered pavement and flinches every time a car’s headlights sweep across his vision. By the time he reaches the steps up to his door, it is all he can do not to vomit, and he cannot even remember why he decided to go outside on such a black and awful night.

His head is starting to clear, but his hands are still cold and uncoordinated. Odry drops his key in the filthy snow and bends down to recover it. As he straightens back up, his skull rises neatly into the path of the club swinging down to meet it.

Odry falls face-down in the slush. He is not given the chance to pick himself up again.


	2. Momentum

_In contrast to those later examples, 10th-century illustrations of the Divinity Voortya depict her as a human woman of impressive stature, with calves, as the hymn says, “Like the pillars of the temple/ And feet planted firm on solid rock.” Her armor is practical and unadorned, though her arms are generally bared save for wide cuffs at the wrists, which when rendered in color are often flecked with red. She bears a spear, and a helmet obscures most of her face, though her mouth and jaw are sometimes revealed in a stern smile._

_One notable exception to this is the Voortya of the Wave, carved around 920 and recently unearthed in the Motsevek Hills. This statue stands in the act of drawing her bow, and her mouth is opened wide in what some scholars have interpreted as a war cry but, given the cultural context, is likelier to be song._

— “THE NATURE OF CONTINENTAL ART,” DR. EFREM PANGYUI

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Shara strips off her clothing. It reeks—everything about her reeks—of smoke and garlic, but especially of grease. She leaves the clothes in a limp pile on the bathroom floor, steps out of them, and sinks into the tub of hot, scented water.

A sigh of pleasure escapes her as she slides under the surface. Though even “sigh” is too dignified. Call it a whimper. She has withstood hostile interrogation, survived a poisoning attempt, and nearly been crushed in a collapsing tower-block in Jukoshtan, but none of these has left her feeling more bruised and exhausted than two weeks as chef at one of Voortyashtan’s busiest nightclubs.

Her chilled skin prickles with the heat. Sometimes it feels as though the cold and the damp of this place have taken up residence in her bones, and it’s all she can do to remember what warmth is. Voortyashtan is nowhere near recovered from the ravages of the war, much less the minor rebellions echoing after the Summer of Black Rivers. It is too wild and too far north to be of anything but military interest; relationships with the Dreyling Republics are fraying, so there’s very little trade; and Saypur has only funded the infrastructure needed for the transportation and upkeep of troops against the threat of northern pirates. Not to mention the local population. But the embassy does at least have decent plumbing, thank the seas. Shara lingers underwater, deliberately not thinking of anything in particular, and lets her breath out in a trail of fat bubbles.

 _All right, my dear_ , she imagines a familiar voice telling her. _Back to the job._

She resurfaces, reaches for the shampoo bottle, and begins to work the smell of the kitchens out of her hair. As she does so, she leans her head back against the rim of the copper tub and puts her thoughts in order.  
  
  
_Fact: Four months ago, the army conducted a successful attack on the stronghold of a small but active war-band called the Kyrga, some hundred and fifty miles outside the city limits of Voortyashtan._

  1. Their cache of weapons, supplies, and valuables was inventoried with typical military attention to such matters, meaning very little. 
    1. For a war-band as well-funded as this one seems to have been, they didn’t have much cash or other valuables. 
      1. The warlord and at least a dozen of his followers escaped the raid. They may have taken some items with them. 
      2. Alternatively, the cache may have been looted before the inventory took place.
    2. What _was_ included in the inventory: several items of mundane appearance but miraculous origin. 
      1. As interested as they are in general destruction and destabilization, the Kyrga are also notable for their fanatical devotion to the Divinity Voortya. 
      2. Shortly before their stronghold was taken, the Kyrga were hiding and carrying out raids in the Motsevek Hills east of Voortyashtan, an area that was once riddled with cliff-side temples. 
        * Pangyui (among others) has speculated that systematic excavation of these cliffs would yield unprecedented archaeological finds, if the region ever becomes stable enough for such an expedition.



_ Fact: Shortly after the Kyrga were dispersed, two members of the platoon that carried out the attack deserted. _

  1. One of these two, Sergeant Lenya Aloshti, was found dead in Voortyashtan seven weeks ago. 
    1. She was discovered next to the corpse of Dmitry Sarbolin, a Voortyashtani who provided security at Valeriya’s nightclub and rented one of the rooms above the club. 
      1. Military investigators tracked this murder back to a member of the Kyrga war-band, who was unfortunately killed during the attempted arrest. 
        1. Tentative conclusion: Aloshti and Validesh learned something of value during the raid, or (likelier) stole something of value from the Kyrga stronghold.
      2. Was Sarbolin a participant in these events or an unfortunate bystander? Hopefully the former, or I have asked Sigrud to spend a whole month infiltrating Valeriya’s nightclub for no good reason.
  2. The other deserter, Corporal Odry Validesh, has not been seen since leaving his platoon. 
    1. He may have fled the Continent. 
      1. Back to Saypur? That would be difficult without papers, but not impossible if he had money. 
      2. North to the Dreyling Republics would have been easier for him. Much harder for me, though.
    2. He may still be on the Continent. 
      1. If so, he’s doing a very good job of avoiding the military. 
      2. He’ll still find travel difficult without papers he can use. 
        1. In which case he has probably not left Voortyashtan. 
        2. Or, just possibly, he went east from the Motsevek Hills instead of west with Aloshti, and he is now in Kolkashtan.
    3. Or he may be dead, in which case there’s nothing to do about it until someone finds his body, too.
  3. Other than the fact of their deaths, I have been unable to discover any definite connection between Aloshti and Sarbolin, or for that matter Validesh and Sarbolin. Sigrud did learn from his coworkers—though I cannot imagine how, as he never seems to talk to any of them—that Sarbolin had a well-hidden, illicit, and given his personality inexplicable interest in artifacts and hymnbooks sacred to the Divine Voortya. 
    1. Which argues for a connection between Sarbolin and the Kyrga? 
      1. A tenuous one, at best. He was certainly not a member of the war-band himself.
    2. What, if anything, did Aloshti take from the Kyrga? Something Sarbolin might have valued? 
    3. This discovery seemed significant enough to justify getting me a job in Valeriya’s kitchens, since Sarbolin’s work and social life both revolved around the nightclub, but since then I have learned nothing of value.



_Fact: I am absolutely sick of cooking._  
  
  
She is lying still in the rapidly-cooling water when soft footsteps in the next room break the quiet. The bathroom door opens, and she knows without looking that it is Sigrud. “It’s been some time since you came by,” she says without cracking her eyelids.

“It’s been some time since there was something to report.”

“But there was something tonight?”

“A customer. Saypuri, with short hair and a close beard. Taller than most, and built for active work.”

“Military?” The odds of that are much better than even. There are very few reasons for Saypuris to come as far north as Voortyashtan.

“I would say so,” he agrees, “but his face was hungry, and his coat was torn, and it was too large in the chest.”

Shara opens her eyes and sits up, though not so far that anything below her collarbone is exposed. Not that it matters; the milky film of soap on the water is translucent, and if her secretary has never demonstrated any sense of modesty (hers _or_ his own) he has also never shown any sign of sexual interest. In Shara, or anyone else, for that matter.

“I won’t say the military feeds its soldiers _well_ ,” Shara says, thinking aloud, “but it can certainly be counted on to feed them _enough_.” She gropes for her glasses and sets them on her nose.

Sigrud stands just inside the doorway, arms crossed. His pale face shows just a hint of wind-blown red in the cheeks, proof that not even Dreylings are entirely immune from the cold. “His left eyebrow was burnt half off,” he says, as though it is an afterthought.

She sits up farther, not caring what he can see. “You think he was the other deserter. Odry Validesh.”

“He matches the description.” He bends over to pick up the clothes lying on the floor. Shara stirs, but does not protest; he has been with her for a year, and she is still unused to being waited on by a feral giant.

“Was he with anyone?”

“No.”

“Ah.” Shara subsides, disappointed, into the suds. “You’d know him again, though?” He raises an eyebrow, and she nods. He may only have one eye, but it is a good one for faces and other physical detail. She has learned to trust his observations. “How long was he there?”

“An hour and a half, two hours. No more.”

“There aren’t many reasons to come to Valeriya’s alone. Fewer, if you don’t even have enough money for regular meals.” It is a trendy place, if Voortyashtan can be said to have trendy places, and though she has seen lone men at the bar they are always the sort who can afford to drown their sorrows in high-end whiskey.

“He had money for drinks,” Sigrud says, “or met someone who did. He was drunk when he left.”

“How drunk?”

His lip curls. “Very. He was confused, stumbling.”

She drums her fingers against the rim of the tub, then reaches down to pull out the plug. “Pity you couldn’t follow him.”

His face takes on a strange sort of stillness. “I thought of it,” he says slowly, “but I was on duty, and when we spoke of this job—”

“No, of course you shouldn’t have left,” Shara says at once. She hopes it doesn’t sound like she is _trying_ to be reassuring. She is unused, too, to the idea that he wants—what, exactly? Her approval? As far as she can tell, Sigrud’s usual emotional range runs from anger to irritation to boredom, with a default state of stony impassiveness. But he has made it clear from the beginning that this work—not her work for its own sake, but the fact that it is Shara’s work, specifically—is important to him. Necessary, in some way she does not entirely understand. “We can’t risk your losing this job, at least not yet. But we should work out a way to respond if this happens again. It might be time to bring in those outside contractors.” The water runs out of the tub with a rhythmic glugging sound, and she shivers in the cool air. Sigrud hands her a towel. “Thank you.”

He chooses that moment to turn and walk back into the bedroom, probably not out of consideration for her modesty, but she appreciates the chance to dry off and wrap the oversized but threadbare towel around herself before she joins him. The bare wood chills her feet, and she slides them gratefully into the fur-lined slippers waiting by her bed. He is wearing a similar pair, warm but thin enough to fit inside the stiff, pointed clogs they have both left at the door. Voortyashtani footwear takes some getting used to. Most Saypuris don’t bother, but Shara finds it practical for the climate.

Sigrud is looming over the bedside table to trim her lamp, an oversized man in an undersized room. Her flannel pyjamas--another Voortyashtani convention, one she is grateful for--are already laid out on the bed. She shrugs them on. “You can step outside without attracting notice, can’t you? Not long enough for a smoke, just long enough to give a signal.”

He nods and straightens, the top of his head almost brushing the ceiling.

Shara settles cross-legged on the mattress, biting back a groan. The bath eased some of the knots out of her back and shoulders, but not all of them. “I’d like you to hire enough people to wait outside for the next week or two. Have them dress as beggars, and find enough of them to set up a rotation.” The area around Valeriya’s neither affluent nor exactly safe, but the police sometimes sweep through to remove panhandlers. “If he comes back again, I’d like him followed.”

He nods again. “I work the next three nights.”

“Good.” Shara tilts her head to the side and considers her secretary. Since Sigrud all but demanded to enter her service, he has carried her luggage, served her tea, negotiated with consultants, and acted as a sounding board when she needs one. When necessary, his size and intimidating glare have made him an effective bodyguard.

When she first found him, he offered to sail, fight, or shed blood for her, but he was too weak and malnourished for physical labor. Since his recovery, there has been no opportunity for any of those things. He was a soldier, and Shara expects he will be very useful if any of her operations turns violent, but she considers it good tradecraft to avoid that sort of situation.

When she asked him to take the open position at Valeriya’s nightclub, he agreed without complaint. Now she wonders how much longer he will be willing to do this sort of work.

In the meantime, he is waiting quietly for instruction, and Shara can barely keep her eyes open. “Thank you. This isn’t conclusive, but it is a better lead than we’ve had in weeks. I’ll be working here tomorrow before I head to Valeriya’s,” she says. “Send me a message if you have any trouble with the contractors.”

He nods and disappears, the door closing quietly behind him. Shara stretches out on her back, reaches halfheartedly for the book on the bedside table, then gives up and turns out the light.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Sigrud sleeps until dawn. The sun comes late during winter in this northern city, though not nearly as late as it might. And the nights are not as cold as he’s known them, the snowfalls not as thick—in fact he scarcely wants to call it snow, the dirty, sodden mess the Voortyashtanis trample beneath their carriage wheels and clogged feet.

 _What a particular sort of snobbery you have_ , he imagines Shara saying, with a speaking look over the top of her glasses. In his head, she always speaks to him in Dreyling. Odd, as she does not speak the language with much comfort, fluent as she is when writing it, and has not used it with him above a handful of times. Her first words to him were in Dreyling, though, three curt sentences through the door of his cell, and he heard them a hundred times over in waking dreams before she came back to release him.

She would be right. He is being particular. It is not that he prefers Ahanashtan, with its pale excuse for winter and its smog-heavy air. But over and over he has heard Saypuri complaints of the cold, dark northern reaches of the Continent, and the reality of Voortyashtan is so much less than it might be that he finds it obscurely insulting.

He goes to work. It is child’s play to find people willing to watch outside Valeriya’s; somewhat harder to find reliable people, skilled enough to follow a man without being seen. Still, he has not spent his time in this city merely showing inebriated soldiers to the door. He makes use of what contacts he has, then makes use of their contacts, and when he is satisfied it is mid-afternoon. He still has six hours before he needs to be at Valeriya’s, so he walks north to the refugee quarter.

That is not the official name for the part of the city pocked with cheap tenement housing, where Dreyling families sleep six or more to a room, but that is what the Continentals call it. Voortyashtan has not been wealthy since the Blink; it could ill afford to take in the thousands who fled from the north, and had neither the resources nor the natural generosity to make them welcome. Many of his countrymen only paused here before moving on. But enough remain, turning from the seas to Voortyashtani factories for their livelihoods, or tilling the unforgiving soil in farmsteads scattered throughout the valleys just to the south, that seven years after the revolt there is a defined community of northmen. Sigrud can walk down certain streets and smell cardamom and rye from a bakery, hear the songs of his childhood from an open window, buy a mug of decent beer from a brewer’s stall.

He can, but he rarely chooses to do so.

He is not worried about being recognized. Slondheim changed him so completely that he could meet any of the men and women beside whom he fought, anonymously, against the pirate states, and none would know him. If he meets anyone from his life before the rebellion—but that is not even worth considering.

So that is not the reason that he has only come to this area a handful of times in the weeks they have been in Voortyashtan. Sigrud has pared his existence down to a limited set of experiences. He knows how to process them. Shara introduces variety, but even the more unusual problems she asks him to solve can be addressed with a handful of tactics. They are simple, straightforward. Sigrud himself can be simple and straightforward.

Coming here is neither of those things.

He buys a bowl of fish mashed with root vegetables. The stew is served with dense bread and a smear of butter. The whole meal is in shades of dull brown and yellow-beige, nothing like the colorful plates Shara serves up every night. He does not think of the last time he had a stew like this. When he has eaten several portions, he looks across the street at a house with all its windows boarded shut. The sign on the door says men’s hours in the sauna have just started, so he goes inside, pays the fee, and sits naked in a room choked with steam while around him men gossip and complain in his own tongue. He does not think about the people he last breathed steam with.

When he comes outside again, the change is so intense that it shocks him into indulging, just for a moment, the fantasy that he is somewhere else entirely: a place where the air is cold and clean, where he can walk five minutes in one direction and hear the surf crashing against the rocks, five minutes in another and hear the lowing of cattle. But then there is a tug at the hem of his jacket. He looks down to see a small Voortyashtani child of indeterminate gender holding out a folded slip of paper. The illusion dissolves.

He exchanges paper for coin and reads Shara’s summons. Then he curses.

His ride is waiting several blocks away, a small car with tinted windows. Shielded from view, he is waved through the heavily-guarded gates with a minimum of fuss. The embassy in this unstable region is also the polis governor’s residence and the military headquarters, so Sigrid has been here many times. He already knows the way down to the morgue.

Shara is waiting for him there, but he hardly glances at her before taking in the body laid out on the table. He curses again. He knows this man.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Sigrud stands over the late Corporal Validesh—late twice over—and fixes him with a glare that seems even stonier than usual.

“Is this the man you saw at Valeriya’s last night?” Shara asks.

“Yes.”

She nods, feeling something very like satisfaction. This is far from the ideal outcome, but it may be the break she has been waiting for. “He has been positively identified as Odry Validesh, the second deserter from the Kyrga raid. The police contacted the embassy around noon.”

The Voortyashtan Police Department alerts the governor’s office of suspicious Saypuri deaths as a matter of course, though usually this involves more resentment and foot-dragging. In this case, Validesh’s description was circulated with a list of tattoos and other distinguishing marks shortly after Aloshti’s body was identified, so the police worked out pretty quickly that they didn’t want him on their hands. The wheels of bureaucracy have turned with unusual speed.

Shara flips down the sheet, uncovering the corpse’s neck and shoulders. “He was found hanging from a light fixture in his apartment block. Chair kicked to the side, shoes left neatly by the door. It was supposed to look like a suicide.”

Sigrud has not moved a muscle. “When did it happen?”

“He was found very early this morning. What time did he leave?”

“Just after midnight.”

“So, somewhere between midnight and 3:30.”

His expression shifts just enough to be read as a frown. “How was he found so early?”

“The same reason we’re pretty damn sure it wasn’t a suicide.” She grins at him. “It was the wrong apartment.”

Sigrud blinks. “What?”

“He was renting a place on the second floor. Well behind on the week’s rent, actually, but that’s a separate point. The man who lived on the ground floor was out for a hard night of drinking, got in around 3:30, and found Validesh dangling from the ceiling.” 

“But why would anyone murder him, then leave him in the wrong apartment?”

She produces a keyring from her coat pocket. “It looked like the sort of place where the landlord was likely to cut corners, so I had a hunch, and it panned out. Here’s the key to the ground floor.” Beside it, she places a single, tarnished key without a fob. “And this belonged to Validesh. Not quite identical, but close enough. Cheapest locks I’ve ever seen.”

“So he was killed outside by someone who didn’t knew where he lived. And then they dragged the body in, tried the first door--”

“Something like that, yes.”

He grunts. “Sloppy.”

Shara nods. “That made the police look twice. And once they started looking—” She tilts Validesh’s head to the side so Sigrud can see the livid bruising on his neck. “There are two lines here. Both are probably from the same rope, but the first is at the wrong angle to hang a man from the ceiling. About the right placement to strangle him from eye level, though. And here—” She picks up his left hand so Sigrud can see the index and ring fingers. They are bent slightly out of shape, with darkened blood pooled beneath the skin. “Broken before death. So probably killed inside, actually, after interrogation. A clumsy interrogation, and not a very long one, or someone would have overheard. But it begs the question—what did Odry Validesh know?”

“And what did he tell them?”

“Indeed.” She taps her fingers on the slab next to Validesh’s shoulder. “So Lenya Aloshti and Odry Validesh raid the Kyrga encampment, then desert. Aloshti and one of Valeriya’s bouncers are both killed by one of the Kyrga warriors. Validesh drinks at Valeriya’s, and that same night he too is murdered in a remarkably obvious fashion, though this second killer made more effort to conceal the crime.” Sigrud waits patiently, or at least silently, for her to finish the thought. “It would be premature to conclude he was also killed by one of the Kyrga, but as a working hypothesis—”

“Indeed,” Sigrud says, a rumbling echo. “But that doesn’t explain Valeriya’s.”

“It doesn’t, does it. What is it about a nightclub that gets these deserters killed?”

“I should have followed him,” Sigrud says, surprising her. “He matched the description you gave me. He was clearly out of place. If I tried—”

“It might have come to nothing,” Shara interrupts. “You had no way of knowing, but you would almost certainly have lost your job.”

“It would have been the right choice, if I had prevented this.”

Shara is well aware she could be questioning Validesh right now, not viewing his corpse, but any irritation she feels is not directed at Sigrud. This death is unfortunate, but it is also the first development of real interest in this case. “It took me weeks to get you into Valeriya’s, and you’ve spent even longer establishing yourself there. It would have been the wrong call.” She shakes her head with brisk finality. “I do want to know who he was meeting, though.”

“As I said, he looked out of place. Someone will remember him. A barkeep, perhaps.”

“But we don’t have a good reason for asking,” Shara says. “The military investigators, on the other hand—“

Sigrud lifts both eyebrows. The expression draws her attention irresistibly to the empty socket, though by now Shara has learned the habit of meeting only his good eye. “They will not go unnoticed.”

“No,” she agrees, “but I would hate to lose what momentum this gives us.” She draws the sheet back up over Validesh’s face. “Besides, the killers seem determined to be as conspicuous as possible. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much subtlety. Let’s flush them out.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The military investigators cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as subtle. They knock on Valeriya’s door half an hour before opening, while Shara is folding pastry dough into paper-thin layers and Sigrud is exchanging his version of pleasantries with one of the barkeeps, and grind the evening’s routine to a halt. Shara cannot fault them for efficiency, however. Within minutes three specialists have spread themselves throughout the club, taking down everyone’s names and occupations for later questioning while their lieutenant watches with deceptively sleepy eyes.

The specialists may know who she is, but if so they give no sign. The lieutenant certainly knows. He sat in on all the early information gathering sessions at the governor’s residence, regarding Shara with the same half-lidded look that slides over her now. Satisfied, she goes back to her rolling pin to await her own interrogation.

She listens attentively as she works. The kitchens are a mass of confusion, with busboys and servers and wait staff rotating through to determine whether anyone knows what the trouble is, and to join in the speculation when it becomes clear that no-one does. Opening time comes and goes, and Sigrud is tasked with turning customers away. That is around the point when the owner stops in to check on her staff.

Her name really is Valeriya, though her employees call her Madam Idraztsova, and if Shara is any judge of accents she is a native of Voortyashtan. Shara has only interacted with her directly a handful of times, but based on the loyal, close-knit staff Idraztsova has managed to cultivate, Shara has the impression of a fair employer and good businesswoman. Now she stops beside the counter where Shara is dicing onions and waits patiently for her to reach a natural pause.

“Miss Joondi,” she says, a slight smile crossing her broad face. If she is anxious about the investigators or frustrated at the loss of customers, she gives no sign of it. “There may not be anyone to enjoy your work tonight.”

“The staff are always hungry,” Shara replies. “And I believe soldiers are also known for their appetites.” She meets Idraztsova’s considering gaze over the cutting board, then scrapes the onions into a bowl.

“Yes,” Idraztsova says, struck by this. “That’s a good idea. It may improve their mood. I expect they’ll want to speak to you, too.”

“Are they interviewing all of us?” asks Shara, who knows perfectly well that they are.

“It looks like it. It’s unfortunate this would happen so soon after you’ve come to join us. I hope it doesn’t frighten you away.”

“I don’t frighten easily.” Shara slaps a loin of lamb down on the counter and draws a cleaver as big as her forearm from the knife block at her elbow. “I don’t think I’ll have anything to tell them, though. I hear they’re asking about one of our customers from last night?”

“Yes,” Idraztsova says. “He was killed after leaving us, poor man—I can’t imagine what they think they will learn, but I suppose they have to be thorough.” She sounds unconvinced.

“Do you get a lot of casual harassment?”

Idraztsova shrugs. “Less than I might. I’ve cultivated a Saypuri clientele, which helps; the military does not want me out of business, not when they can get a decent drink and evening’s entertainment here.” She has a lovely speaking voice, clear and melodious, and Shara is reminded that she started her career as one of the singers at this club. Shara has never actually heard her sing. “But I wouldn’t call this casual, would you?”

It certainly is not. When Shara starts sending platters out, she is informed the specialists are searching not only the nightclub but Valeriya’s own apartment upstairs and the rooms she rents to Sigrud and a handful of other staff. Just after ten in the evening, Shara is called in for her own interview.

The investigators have taken over a private room. The lieutenant—Endaisha, he introduces himself, as though for the first time—asks a series of uninteresting questions while a specialist takes notes. Shara gives the address at the apartment block Endaisha’s staff vetted for her, then the story he helped her flesh out. Her name is Shara Joondi. Until recently, she was a chef at the embassy in Kolkashtan.

When asked why she left that position, she raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever _been_ to Kolkashtan?” For the first time, Lt. Endaisha allows himself something Shara is almost willing to call an expression.

The interview does not take long. Given her post in the kitchens, Shara could not be expected to identify any of the nightclub’s customers. She is one of the last to be questioned. An hour later the specialists come back downstairs from their search of the second floor, followed by Idraztsova. She looks upset for the first time, indignant at having her home invaded but too practical to make a fuss over it. When the investigators have been ushered outside, she comes back inside to find her staff gathered near the bar.

“I’m sorry you’ve all had to deal with that,” she says. “I wish I could say that was the end of it, but there’s some chance they may be back.”

“Are they making an arrest?” asks one of the waitresses, a young Continental wearing the loose wool trousers that are popular here among both men and women of Shara’s age.

Idraztsova shakes her head. “They haven’t told me. I’ll give you more information as I get it.” She sighs and looks at her watch. “It’s much too late to open tonight. You can all leave, once we’re locked down, but tomorrow we’ll open as usual. We won’t let this disrupt business, will we?”

Shara has already put the kitchens back in order, and she joins the waiters who are collecting their coats. Sigrud is waiting near the door. As security, he will be one of the last to leave. She gives him a friendly but impersonal nod on the way out, then heads back to the embassy for a more private conference with Lt. Endaisha.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Shara stays up quite late with Lt. Endaisha, learning very little, and then sleeps like the dead until midday.

That afternoon, she sits in a borrowed office and stares at interview transcripts until her eyes begin to hurt. She has removed her glasses and is massaging her temples when the telephone on her desk rings.

She picks up the receiver, half convinced the call must have been sent to the wrong office, but then she is told to hold for an international connection to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is not at all surprised when her aunt’s voice comes on the line. “Shara, my love! How is Voortyashtan this time of year?”

“Cold, Auntie,” Shara says, smiling through the sudden ache in her throat. “Miserably cold, and all their tea is stale. The things we suffer for our country.”

“Poor child. I was calling to wish you a happy birthday, but under the circumstances that might be too much to ask for.”

Shara blinks, then considers the date. She is, she realizes, now twenty-six years old. “Thank you, Auntie.”

“I would ask if you’re doing anything to celebrate, but I can’t imagine what you would do, all alone in the middle of nowhere.”

“Not quite alone. I brought Sigrud with me.”

“Ah, yes,” Vinya says. She sounds dubious. “Well, your gift should have arrived in Ahanashtan by now. If you’ll be in the north much longer, I can have it sent up for you.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” Shara admits. “Thank you for thinking of it. I could use a pleasant distraction. Is this really just a social call?”

“I’m not so devoted to my work that I can’t take a few moments out of a busy day to speak with my niece. Just a few, mind you—I have another meeting quite soon. Though now that you mention it, I do have your interim report in front of me.”

Vinya may be Shara’s aunt, but she is first and foremost her commanding officer. “What do you make of it?”

“It is extremely thorough, but almost a month old. What progress have you made?”

She fills Vinya in on the last several weeks, including Validesh’s murder. “I had the club searched last night and all the employees interrogated. Idraztsova has loyal people, or they just hate us, so we didn’t learn much.” Vinya snorts. “Several of the employees saw Validesh go into a private room at the back, but none would admit to noticing who he met.”

“You think they’re protecting someone.”

“If so, it’s someone they know, which means it almost has to be someone who works at Valeriya’s. Or, I’m almost certain, Idraztsova herself. But I can’t—”

Vinya cuts in. “Wait. Someone who works where?”

“Valeriya’s. Oh, I’m sorry—that may not be in my notes. It’s the name of the club. The owner’s name is Valeriya Idraztsova.”

“One moment. I saw something earlier in the report that caught my eye, but I couldn’t recall why it looked familiar. But that name—” Shara can hear the rustling of paper, half a world away, then some muttered cursing. She waits patiently. Vinya’s memory is formidable, and if she thinks something is important, Shara wants to hear it. “Here it is. Damned awkward Continental names, I get them confused. Is Valeriya a common given name?”

“Not particularly. I’ve met one or two other women who have it.”

“What about this one—Ludmila Matsanin?”

“Matsanin? It sounds Voortyashtani, but I’ve never heard it before. Was it in my report?”

“A page you included from the military records. It’s on the list of known members of the Kyrga war-band.”

“Hmm,” Shara says, hunting for the folder. “What about it?”

“I’ve just remembered why I knew it. It’s from an open file, a very old one that was quite high-profile when it the investigation began. Every so often one of our paper-pushers drags it out again, so I’ve read it several times. You’re probably as familiar with the history of the case as I am. It was in 1670 or so. Vallaicha Thinadeshi?”

“The engineer?” Shara sits up in sudden interest. “Of course. She was planning to extend the Continental railway system north to Voortyashtan and Kolkashtan, and she disappeared along with several assistants during a routine surveying expedition. That was in 1672. Why was Matsanin mentioned?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Vinya says, “I really only have a few minutes to spare. The embassy there will have the full report, though. I hope it’s of some help.”

“I don’t know how it could be connected,” Shara says, “but I am intrigued.”

“Lovely. Oh! Before I go, one last thing. Call it a belated birthday gift. I’m still making the arrangements, and of course it will need to wait until you have finished this operation.”

“Yes?” Shara is frowning down at the report on the war-band, only half paying attention.

“Well, my dear, I don’t want to say too much over an unsecured line, but I have been imagining you freezing up in the cold north, and I really think you’ve spent quite enough time on the Continent.” Shara’s breath catches, and suddenly she has lost all interest in the Kyrga. “I can’t make any promises, but I very much hope that when you return to Ahanashtan I will have orders for you to go somewhere much warmer.”

“Oh, Auntie Vinya,” Shara says, the words thick and heavy in her throat.

“Now, don’t thank me yet. I really must go, these damnable meetings—do call me when you get my package. Happy birthday, darling.” She disconnects with a click.

Shara sits there with the receiver in her hand for a good five minutes. She has hardly dared to ask, these last few years, when she will be able to come home again. She has hardly let herself think about it. Now she gives herself permission, imagines herself sitting on the verandah of Vinya’s townhouse in Ghaladesh, the perfect cup of tea cooling between her hands as a warm ocean breeze wafts across her beautiful city.

She stays there until her wrist begins to ache, and she slowly replaces the receiver. _First things first_ , she tells herself sternly, and gets up to ask one of the CAs outside to fetch her the Thinadeshi file.

Half an hour later, she has managed to push the thought of home to the remote corner of her head where it usually waits, because this file is very interesting indeed.

Shara is already familiar with the general outlines of this case. The fate of Vallaicha Thinadeshi is one of the great mysteries of Continental history post-Blink. Thinadeshi was a renowned engineer who, along with the other great scientific minds that emerged in newly-independent Ghaladesh, transformed Saypur into a hotbed of technological innovation. She came to Ahanashtan in the late 1660’s to assist in building the Continent’s new infrastructure. Under her direction, railroads were laid between each polis in turn, until she turned her attention north and began planning the route between Voortyashtan and Kolkashtan.

An active woman, and—reading between the lines—something of an eccentric, Thinadeshi preferred a hands-on approach to engineering. She joined the surveying parties herself, hiring local guides and hiking through mountain passes, often without a military escort. The escort should not have been necessary on the day she disappeared. She was surveying an area just outside Voortyashtan itself, and in the summer of 1672 the region was enjoying a time of relative peace.

The military investigation that followed could find no sign of violence. They combed the area and interviewed the two children who had served as Thinadeshi’s guides that week. The girls claimed they had left Thinadeshi and her assistants setting up their instruments on a hillside that morning, and when they returned at lunchtime they found tripods still buried in the rocky soil but no sign of the Saypuris.

The report goes on from there to describe the rest of the unsuccessful investigation, but Shara is riveted by the names of the two girls, printed in fading text: Ludmila and Valeriya Matsanin.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Sigrud walks into her office that afternoon and finds Shara buried in court records that took the embassy underlings several hours to dig up. She looks up from the topmost of these. “Valeriya Idraztsova’s maiden name was Matsanin.”

He grunts.

“Her sister,” Shara goes on, stabbing her finger at the file, “is named Ludmila, and she has been a member of the Kyrga for several years.”

“Suggestive.”

“More than that. We have a solid connection. Sit down, if you would—I need to talk this out from beginning to end.”

Sigrud takes the chair opposite her. It creaks under his weight. “You think they’re working together.”

“On what?” Shara shakes her head. “No, let me back up, start with what we do know. The Mastanin sisters grew up in the foothills outside Voortyashtan. I don’t have precise birthdates for either of them, but in 1672 Valeriya was eleven or twelve, and Ludmila about five years younger. That is according to a military investigation into the disappearance of a rather famous Saypuri engineer.”

“Is that related?”

“I don’t see how. Maybe. We can come back to that. Eventually Valeriya grew up and moved into the city. Ludmila may have done the same, but we have no record of her activities during this time. Valeriya started singing professionally in one of the nightclubs, where she met her husband, Artur Idraztsova, around the time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started enforcing the Worldly Regulations in earnest, and Bulikov rebelled in the Summer of Black Rivers. That led to a cascade of other rebellions, most of them in the mountain country east of Voortyashtan and west of Kolkashtan. These were eventually put down, but they led to the formation of a number of war-bands that have continued to be a thorn in our side. Among them, the Kyrga, under a petty warlord named Evgenia Kolanova.”

Sigrud raises an eyebrow. “A woman? That’s not what I’d have expected of Continentals.”

“Most of the conservatism you’ve seen farther south is a recent backlash against Saypuri values,” Shara explains. By recent she means the last half-century, give or take. Even then the extreme gender roles mostly originated in Kolkashtan, and by extension in Bulikov—but that is a longer conversation for another time. “Voortya was both a female Divinity and the warrior, and the Kyrga are explicitly, militantly devoted to traditional Voortyashtani practices.

“In the meantime, the Idraztsovas buy their own nightclub and hire Dmitry Sarbolin, Artur’s longtime friend. Still no word from Ludmila. Artur dies, apparently of heart trouble—no reason to suspect foul play there, from what I can tell—and Valeriya continues to run the place without him. According to his coworkers, Sarbolin develops an interest in Divine artifacts, and in 1699 he is charged under the WR for attempting to purchase a dagger said to have been blessed by Voortya. He settles out of court and is fined 5,000 drekels. The fine is paid by Valeriya Idraztsova.” Her gaze, previously unfocused, narrows in on Sigrud. “You’re sure there are no rumors of an affair? I haven’t heard any myself, but—”

“She has spoken to me of Sarbolin on several occasions,” Sigrud says, “and she did not sound like a woman speaking of her dead lover.”

“Not even like a woman who might have had her lover killed? But I’m getting ahead of myself. Three years ago, Ludmila Matsanin reappears, named by one of our operatives as one of the Kyrga conducting raids east of Voortyashtan. Four months ago, their stronghold is attacked by a platoon that included Odry Validesh and Lenya Aloshti. The Kyrga are scattered, leaving behind several items of interest: a black-tipped spear, a glass goblet, and a woman’s shawl.”

And here they come to the heart of it. Shara would not have come running up north for the murder of an army deserter. She would certainly not have spent weeks planning this operation, installing Sigrud and then herself in Valeriya’s nightclub. But she would, and did, do these things to investigate a deadly war-band that has secured artifacts of miraculous origin.

She is looking down at the inventory now, a copy of the same list that made her sit up and take notice when it it came across her desk in Ahanashtan. Now, as then, her hand clenches on the paper. The descriptions of those three objects match, respectively, the weapons granted to several Blessed children of Voortya in the 1500’s, the set of goblets given to a favored warlord that would shatter when filled with poisoned wine, and the sacred garment of a gallows-priestess. Never mind that Shara herself has examined them and determined they are no longer miraculous. Never mind that not a single miracle of Voortya’s has worked since she was killed in the Night of the Red Sands. The very thought that the works of Voortya, of all divinities, might find themselves in the hands of Saypur’s enemies is enough to justify all the years of Shara’s peculiar obsessions. These are the fears that keep Saypuri intelligence officers up at night.

Sigrud is watching her noncommittally. Shara draws a slow breath. “Leaving behind, as I said, several items of interest. Divine interest. In circumstances that suggest there ought to have been more to be found.

“To continue: Validesh and Aloshti desert, and both wind up eventually in Voortyashtan. Aloshti and Sarbolin are found dead in one of the less inviting areas of the city, and the military traces their death to a member of the Kyrga, who dies before he can be questioned. Seven weeks later, Validesh visits Valeriya’s nightclub and meets someone in a private room. He emerges, apparently intoxicated, and is found early the next morning in his neighbor’s apartment after having been tortured and strangled. Idraztsova’s employees admit to seeing Validesh himself but not to seeing the person he was there to meet.” Shara looks up at Sigrud. “Those, I believe, are the facts of the case. Have I forgotten anything?”

He shakes his head.

“So, these are the things we know. The things we do not know: What Validesh and Aloshti took from the Kyrga before they deserted. What the Kyrga intended to do with it. And finally, whether Valeriya, like her sister, is a devotee of Voortya.” Shara considers for a moment. “I would like to search her apartment.”

“I thought that had been done.”

“Oh, I’m sure they were thorough,” Shara says, “but they may not have known how to look.” She adjusts her glasses and sets her mind to action. Momentum, she knows from long experience, is key in cases like this. “Is she usually at home during the day?”

“Some days, yes. She entertains, visits friends, meets businessmen. I don’t know her schedule.”

“And at night? I rarely see her in the kitchens.”

“She stays downstairs while the club is open,” Sigrud says. “I see her when I lock the door at the end of my shift.”

“At, what, around one in the morning on week nights? It might be best for me to go right after the kitchens shut down, while they’re only serving drinks. That’s less than two hours.” It might be enough time for a break-in and search, but she prefers a more comfortable margin when she can get it.

“If you need more time,” Sigrud says, “I can keep her busy.”

“How?” He stares at her, unblinking, until Shara raises her eyebrows. “Really? Well. That is—convenient.” She wants to say ‘unexpected’, but it occurs to her that even Sigrud might be offended. “Tonight, then.” She stands and reaches for the leather satchel hung from the door. “I’ll check in before you go to work, but first there are some supplies I need.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Sigrud has no room in himself left for regrets, but he wishes he had not made Shara this particular offer.

As he expected, it is not difficult. His job is security, so he usually is the last employee to leave after checking doors and windows. Valeriya Idraztsova is the owner and lives upstairs, so she leaves after securing the night’s earnings in a safe in the back room. Tonight, at the point when he would usually move toward the stairwell that leads to the second level, he turns instead to wait for her at the bar.

She comes out with the keyring swinging at her side and looks at him in faint surprise. “Is anything the matter?”

“No,” he says, “but I wondered if you would join me for a drink.”

The surprise is less faint now. “What did you have in mind?”

“Something against the cold.”

She seems tired but not exhausted. It was not a very busy night, so they closed a little earlier than usual. Besides, it was later by far on the several occasions when she was the one making the invitation. He is glad that he refused with a gentleness that was hard to come by. Now she looks at him for a long moment, and then her eyes warm with pleasure. “Then yes, please.”

He nods once and goes behind the bar. He comes out again with a bottle of red wine, a bottle of port that looks blackish purple in the dim light, and (after discarding the potato wine) a bottle of their best brandy.

“Wine glasses?” she asks him, holding up her hands.

“Mugs,” he replies, and goes into the kitchen.

The pot, bowl, and paring knife are easy to come by, but it takes him a few minutes to find the ingredients he needs. He knows they will be here, though. Shara has cooked for him twice in Ahanashtan, first in the furious aftermath of a carefully-orchestrated arrest gone horribly wrong and the second time in some private rage she did not explain. Sigrud knows what spices she favors. He fills the little bowl with golden raisins and leaves them to soak in brandy, then slices a little tough knob of ginger. Shara would do this rapidly, knife never pausing, and have it reduced in seconds to little cubes. Sigrud takes his time.

Idraztsova has rejoined him by then. She sits at the counter with the mugs in front of her and watches. She does not seem to mind the silence. He glances at her over the ginger. She meets his eye steadily, not changing expression. They do not smile without good reason, these Voortyashtanis. Sigrud appreciates this about them.

She is comfortable with silence, and she is an attractive woman. Well past her youth, but Sigrud too is past the point of feeling anything but pity for the young. She has an interesting face. Not beautiful, which would make a man look twice, but interesting in a way that could make him look again and again, and be happy to look for the rest of his life.

He puts the pot on the stove with a bit of water and melts sugar in when it is hot enough. Then he adds the spices: cinnamon sticks, whole cloves and cardamom pods, star anise that spins in the hot water. “Have you had spiced wine before?” His throat feels rusty and disused. He reaches for an orange. They are very difficult to import here, and it is a bit shriveled, but it will do.

“Once or twice.” He likes the way she uses her voice. It is always pitched exactly to the mood of the room and the point she wishes to make. “It is a Dreyling drink, isn’t it?”

He nods, tosses the orange peel into the mix. Crushes the orange itself in his ungloved left hand so the juice runs between his fingers and into the pot.

“How long does it take to make?”

Sigrud glances at the clock on the kitchen wall. He has promised Shara another forty-five minutes. “Half an hour to spice it well. You can leave it on the stove a whole day.” The minutes tick by. He pours in the wine, stirs it. Reaches for the port.

There is a melody in his head. It takes him some time to realize it is Idraztsova, humming low in the back of her throat. He has heard her sing before, several times. That was always onstage in the club, usually jazz, or something with a lilting rhythm from Qivos and the outlying islands, or other music he recognizes as modern and Continental. Though the people Shara works with would call that a contradiction in terms. The thing she is humming now is different, simpler, with often-repeating notes that turn over on themselves.

Sigrud pours the raisins and brandy into the pot and gives it a quick stir. He spoons up a bit of the wine and tastes it, and Idraztsova stops humming. He wishes she would go on but does not ask her to. Instead he offers her the long wooden spoon, carefully level.

It would be easy for her to brush her hand against his when she takes it from him, but she does not. That is in character. Her offers have been clear but never demanding. Sigrud is certain that she and Dmitry Sarbolin were not lovers, whatever that may have looked like. Sigrud has taken the dead man’s job and is literally sleeping in his bed. He does not think Idraztsova would ask him to sleep there in the other sense, as well.

She raises the spoon to her lips and tastes the wine. “Too sweet?” he asks.

She shakes her head. He nods and takes the spoon back to fish out the orange peel. Leave it in too long, and the wine will grow bitter. Then he takes the mugs and begins ladling the drink into them, straining it against the back of the wooden spoon. Steam curls up as it splashes against the cold clay.

Idraztsova takes her mug and lifts it to her lips in silence. He waits for her to lower it again and give him a nod of appreciation before he drinks his own. It is good. Sigrud cannot cook, but this he can do.

“Maybe we should start offering this,” Idraztsova says. “A novelty drink during the darkest months. We could keep a huge pot on a brazier. I wonder how it would sit on a Saypuri palate.”

“Why do you serve their food?” he asks.

That is not quite all he means, of course. He is asking her why she caters to the people who killed her god, who razed her city, who stop her tongue when she would speak of her history. Why she would offer warmth and comfort to battle-weary soldiers and the hardened profiteers of war.

Idraztsova understands the question, and she does not answer it until she has finished the wine in slow sips. She offers him the mug, and he refills it. “It pays,” she says at last. “We didn’t intend to run the place like this at the beginning—Artur and I, I mean. That was my husband.” He knows this, of course, but does not say so. “But when a city destroys itself three times in a decade, there’s not much left but soldiers, and no-one left to spend anything except the winners. Soldiers like music, they like drinks, they like a bit of good food that tastes like home, and they have money to pay for it.” She swirls the wine in her mug, considering it. “So we survived. Most businesses did not. And when peace came, or something like it, and things got easier, they remembered us. For a while I tried to hate them as much as I used to, when I was a young woman. It was exhausting. I’ve made a living out of not hating the way I should.”

“Who says that you should?”

“Reason, I suppose. And people that I loved very much.”

“ _Envy the fire,_ ” Sigrud says, “ _for it is either going or not. Fires do not feel happy, sad, angry. They burn, or they do not burn._ ” He drains his mug and sets it down. “A saying, from my country.”

She rises, comes around the counter, and takes up the ladle to pour out the last of the wine into his mug. The kitchen is cold except for the pot sitting over a low flame, except for the weight of her arm near to his. Sigrud should feel something about this. His body should respond in some way; his mind should be excited or reluctant or both. Failing this, he should grieve or be grateful that these things do not happen. He should think of his wife, but even that reaction does not come.

“Your people would not say that,” says Valeriya Idraztsova, in her low and burning voice, “if they had known Olvos.”

They could be fined, arrested, for speaking of this. Sigrud has not mentioned to Shara what he thinks of her Worldly Regulations. “I thought it was Voortya you worshiped.”

He does not specify whether he means Idraztsova herself, or her people. She does not ask, but she shrugs. “They were sisters, or lovers, or both, depending on who you ask. Very different, though. Olvos left before we began the invasions, and her people dispersed. There are songs about it.” Then, so quietly he is not sure whether she is still speaking to him, “Sometimes I think they were better off.”

The wine runs rich and hot down his throat, burning a little as it goes.

When he sets it down again, Idraztsova is watching him. “The Dreylings did not have gods any more than they did. I’ve wondered—have you wondered?—why we never came north to conquer you.”

“We weren’t ready,” he says.

Her dark, lightly silvered hair falls over her shoulder as she tilts her head to one side.

“Saypur was ripe,” Sigrud says, in answer to the unspoken question. “We weren’t, yet. We needed our kings to show us peace, and we needed to grow soft in those golden sea-days, and then we were ready—and we ate ourselves from the inside.”

Idraztsova reaches slowly to lay her hand on his wrist. She chooses the right hand, the one covered in a glove, so only the tips of her fingers rest on his skin. He looks down at it, then back at her face. It wears a curious non-expression as she watches him, seeking, he thinks, some reaction. When she does not find it, she smiles for the first time that night, a slight smile and full of regret.

“This is not,” she says, “the way I expected this evening to go.”

He could say the same, but he does not. He could take her hand with his, but he does not.

It is half past two in the morning.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
After the kitchens close that evening, Shara packs up her things and makes a show of leaving as usual. Then she pauses near the employee exit, pulls a copy of Sigrud’s key from the carefully-packed satchel at her side, and unlocks the door to the apartments above.

Idraztsova owns the building as well as the club, and she rents out three rooms on the second floor, mostly to employees. The fourth apartment is her own. Shara removes her clogs to walk silently along the narrow hall and count the doors to her right, one of which is Sigrud’s. The investigators searched those as well, finding nothing of interest except for an alarming number of knives and an _ax_ on Sigrud’s chest of drawers. Shara has considered asking him about this, but it does not seem immediately relevant.

She reaches the end of the hall and turns to her left, to Idraztsova’s door. She does not have a key, and the lock is a good one, so she will have to hope all of the other tenants are busy. Lock picking is one of the most basic skills in the field, but not something Shara has had much opportunity to practice herself. She breathes a sigh of relief when the knob turns under her hand, slips inside, and closes the door behind her.

Shara takes a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dark. The room in which she is standing is a neat, spacious kitchen-cum-dining-room, with a pair of narrow windows along one wall. She crosses to these and checks that the wooden storm shutters are pulled tight, then closes the curtains. Then she returns to the door to wedge her heavy woolen scarf into the gap beneath it. Only then does she turn on the gas lamps just enough to cast a dim glow over the room.

Sigrud has promised to make sure Idraztsova does not come upstairs until at least two o’clock, an hour after the club closes down. Shara has two and a half hours remaining.

Lt. Endaisha’s notes described the apartment in detail, from the ornately carved furniture and thick rugs to the contents of the kitchen cupboards. Shara doesn’t waste time confirming what the specialists found. Instead she sets down her satchel and flips it open. On top are a variety of jars and bottles she filled at the spice market that afternoon, in part because the kitchen really is running low but mostly because they explain the clanking from the other things she has packed. Shards of various types of metal, a teaspoon made of pure amber, bags of flower petals that might pass for herbs, and jars of various unmentionable substances she has no intention of taking near a kitchen.

 _Might as well begin with the basics_. Shara takes a small bottle filled with graveyard mud and smears it across the bottom of an empty jar, then shakes a handful of daisy petals into the jar. Securing fresh daisies in Voortyashtan in the middle of the winter is not a simple thing, but Sigrud’s army of contractors continues to pay for itself. She wipes the glass almost clean of mud and raises the lip of the jar to her eye.

Through the base of the jar, this room looks exactly the same, if a little dimmer and slightly distorted. Shara takes her time inspecting all four walls as well as the inside of the cupboards and the underside of the table. The lens she has created should be powerful enough to spot works of the Divine even through a few inches of wood or fabric, but it is better to be safe. She must be right above the stage in the nightclub, because she can hear sultry strains of jazz through the floorboards and feel the beat through her slippers.

The sitting room is next. Shara stops to check these windows before continuing. Her eye is drawn at once to the bookshelves. She sets down the jar to read the spines, just in case Lt. Endaisha missed something important, but she finds only what she expects: a number of novels, several imported from Saypur. A history of Saypuri music and another describing Dreyling traditions, as well as some newer works on Continental music in various regions. A surprising number of mathematical works. Her hand falls from one of the bookshelves to the table below, where a Tovos Va board sits with the pieces laid out mid-game. She shies away and picks up the jar again.

The lens shows her nothing in this room, or in the toilet, so she continues through the last door into what is clearly Idraztsova’s bedroom. Shara stops at once, the jar raised to a spot above the headboard where the wall glows a faint blue-green.

“There, that was really too easy,” she says to herself, hurrying back for her satchel.

The compartment is not concealed or protected by any miraculous means. When Shara inserts a narrow penknife into a gap at exactly the right angle, several boards pull back under her hands. Kneeling on Idraztsova’s pillows, she sets the board aside and peers into a hole in the wall, lined with what she suspects is lead and filled with marvelous and terrible things.

She gives into the academic’s instinct and starts with the books. There are over a dozen of them, the smallest no bigger than the palm of her hand, and they are very old. Most do not have titles. She pages carefully through each. She thinks at first they are books of poems, then looks closer at the odd decorations of dashes and dots between each line and realizes they are songs. Hymns, specifically, to Voortya.

Her palms itch as she examines them, and her hands shake a little. She cannot quite tell if it is fear or excitement. Shara sets the books carefully back in their places and checks that none of them light up under the lens. They are not Divine-made, whatever their contents might be.

Then she moves on to the other items: a short knife with a blade of pitch-black metal; a single leather slipper, lined in crushed and faded velvet; a smoky glass jar Shara opens with infinite care to reveal what look like a handful of gilded ball-bearings; a deck of cards, beautifully painted, with only light foxing around the edges, in five suits she does not recognize; a moth-eaten square of woven thread, pressed carefully between boards of a sweet-smelling wood. Most of these glow just a little under her lens, indicating Divine origin but not bright enough to be miraculous any longer. This is no surprise, as she recognizes most of them as Voortya’s works. The knife alone seems to be entirely mundane. Still, she handles all these things with respect and something she is not quite willing to call awe.

She comes at last to a thick wad of soft dark wool, which seems unremarkable in itself. Then Shara opens it, and resting between the folds she finds a dully gleaming mass of metal.

“Oh,” she whispers. “Oh, my goodness.”

She lifts it gently and turns it over. It is a long, fingerless glove of finely-woven metal links, studded with tiny stones. She cannot see their color in the dim light of the gas lamps, but she knows they are rubies. She knows, in fact, what this is.

Shara sits there with Voortya’s left gauntlet in her hands and tries to remember how to breathe.

Before she can recover, she hears something over the music downstairs: a sharp thud from the kitchen, and then voices.

Her watch tells her it is not even one o’clock, too early for Idraztsova. She looks down at the gauntlet, then at her satchel, and gives herself the space of a heartbeat to decide what to do. Then she folds the wool back over the gauntlet and replaces it exactly as she found it, just as she replaced the books and other items.

The boards slip back into place. Shara plumps up the pillows and smooths the coverlet to hide all traces of where she knelt. She picks up her jar of daisies and dumps the petals into her satchel, spits on the glass, and rubs it vigorously against the leg of her trousers, then shoves her satchel under the bed. She walks to the door and listens as they move from the kitchen into the sitting room.

They: two women, by the sound of it. And they are making a great deal of sound. She is fairly certain the thud she heard was the door being broken in. _Clumsy_ , she thinks, with disgust. _How embarrassing this is going to be._

Because Idraztsova might have left the lights on, but she would not have left a scarf wedged under the door. These people may be inept housebreakers, but they certainly know Shara is here, and there is no point in hiding from them.

Shara opens the door and walks into the sitting room, her empty hands held a little from her sides. “Good evening,” she says. “Or morning, I suppose.”

The women, two Continentals wearing wet clogs and startled expressions, look at her with open astonishment. They have excellent reflexes, though, and Shara is reminded that as inept as the Kyrga may be at hushing up murders and performing interrogations, they are experts in other, more violent areas. In an instant, one has a crossbow pointed at Shara’s heart, and the other has a wickedly long knife in her hand.

“Who in hells are you?” asks the one with the crossbow.

The one with the knife glares at her companion. “Probably another damned military investigator. I told you, we should have waited until we were sure they weren’t coming back.”

Shara cocks an eyebrow at the second woman, taking in her features and weighing some familiar quality in her voice. “I am not military,” she says. “And I’m sorry to tell you your sister is out. But I suppose you knew that already, or you would have knocked.”

“Oh, shit,” says Ludmila Matsanin.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
As he is about to turn out his light, there is a knock at Sigrud’s door.

Idraztsova stands there, still dressed. He thinks at first the obvious, but it is immediately clear that she is here for another reason. She looks frightened, but tightly controlled.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know it’s very late, but someone has broken into my apartment. Will you come with me?”

It does not occur to him at first that she might mean anything but Shara, looking through her things, but when they reach the door at the end of the hallway Sigrud feels himself go cold and still. The door stands half-open, and the knob has been smashed in.

He leads the way through her apartment. There are signs of a search, and not a very expert one--not the sort he would expect of Shara. The sofa cushions are on the floor, ripped through, and all the books have been taken off the shelves, but he does not care very much about these things.

They look into each room. When they reach the bedroom and it is clear there is no-one left in the apartment, she says, “Will you give me just a moment, please?” He steps outside. She shuts the door and he hears the squeak of the bed, but he does not spend time wondering what she is doing, because it is then that he sees a pair of glasses lying on the floor, one thick lens smashed to pieces, the other cracked in two.

When Idraztsova comes back out again, he turns to her, and when she sees his face whatever she was about to say dies visibly on her tongue.

Earlier Sigrud waited for a reaction in himself, and none came. Now he feels it building in him, a tight, gnawing coil of rage. “Where,” he breathes, “is your sister?”


	3. Shy Unless Provoked

_The music of Voortyashtan, in its most traditional form, contains no instrumentals. Most hymns comprise two vocal lines, the lower droning on a narrow range of notes while the higher—generally a soloist—takes the melody and the lyrics. Some attain more complex harmonies, though save for a handful of examples in_ The Kontaria _, a hymnbook dating from the early 1200’s, none employ true counterpoint._

_Voortyashtani song is also peculiar for being almost entirely sacred in nature. Even lyrics on secular subjects, from laments for lost love to children’s counting games, begin and end by invoking the Divinity._

— “THE NATURE OF CONTINENTAL ART,” DR. EFREM PANGYUI

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Shara is taken east out of Voortyashtan. She knows this because there are only a few checkpoints, and the attendants do not even bother to open the trunk to find her lying there with someone’s scratchy woolen scarf stuffed in her mouth. North, there are only mountains and farmland and eventually the road to Kolkashtan; no real need for bureaucracy.

Shara considers screaming through the wool, but she does not think she will be heard over the car’s noisy engine. Besides, she is too busy trying to keep the blood from running up her nose. She does not think they have actually broken it.

 _By the seas, that_ was _embarrassing._ At first she had some vague idea of convincing Ludmila Matsanin and her companion to let her go, but they were uninterested in negotiating. All they wanted to know was whether she had the gauntlet, or whether she knew where it was, and when it became clear that she the former was not the case and she was unwilling to admit to the latter, they wanted to question her in much the same way Odry Validesh had been questioned. Shara’s considered opinion was that nobody in the club downstairs would hear her cries of pain or protest over the music, but she wasn’t eager to put this to the test, so she gave them a withering look she’s borrowed from Aunt Vinya and said, “How did that work for you the last two times you tried it?”

Which is why she is bound head and foot in their trunk with a possibly broken nose and without her glasses, instead of simply being bound head and foot in their trunk. Or, she supposes, dead. She can live with the nose, but she does regret the glasses.

Shara also knows they are going east because of the way the road winds twists and bends. Soon she gives up on the blood and concentrates on not throwing up. Every so often the trunk shifts under her as the car heads uphill, and eventually the paved road turns to gravel. She can feel it in the vibrations at her back.

When the car finally stops and the trunk opens, she lies unresisting as someone removes the ropes around her ankles. Then they haul her out of the car. She tries to look around and gets a shove for her trouble. She would not be able to see very much in any case, in the dark and without her glasses, but she knows they have traveled up into the mountains. She could try to scream now, but Shara has the distinct impression that no-one would hear her.

Instead she counts people as she walks. There were two in Idraztsova’s apartment and a third in the car, presumably the driver. After a few minutes’ forced march with a none-too-gentle hand at her elbow, she sees two pairs of feet on her left and another two on her right. She sees heavy duty crossbows on the right, and on the left—is that a rifle butt? These people have _guns_. She wonders if they’ve managed ammunition and wishes very much that she could see better.

“Any luck?” asks a man’s voice.

“We were interrupted,” replies the woman holding Shara’s elbow, the one who is not Ludmila Matsanin. “But Kolanova will want to see this.”

“Bring her inside.”

 _Inside_ refers to a hole in the mountain, a deep cave that starts as a long, narrow passageway poorly lit by the occasional lantern. It opens into a larger cavern, where she counts at least half a dozen more people and, judging by the very blurry flashes of lantern-light on metal, more crossbows.

They take her deeper into the mountain, down anther narrow passageway that culminates in a small chamber with a metal grille serving for a door. She is dumped inside and left alone in the dark to work the ropes off her wrists and the scarf out of her mouth. Not that this does her any good; the grille is new steel and free of rust, and while she can reach the lock with a little effort she has no tools to pick it.

Shara has lost track of time when she hears footsteps in the hall and sees a light approaching. “Ludmila Matsanin?” she hazards, guessing mostly by her height. She can hardly see anything.

“Do you have the gauntlet?” Matsanin asks. No time for pleasantries. “I need to know.”

“Why are you asking? I thought they were sending for Kolanova.”

“I am asking because right now they think that either you have it or my sister has it, and they will kill her to get it unless I can prove that she does not.”

“Ah,” Shara says. “Well, you understand, I’m rather more concerned about the possibility that they might kill _me_.”

“I can help you.”

“Much better. What do you need? I don’t actually have the thing.”

“The _thing_ is a Divine relic of Voortya,” Matsanin says, her voice near to spitting. “Speak of it with respect.”

“Well, I don’t,” Shara says, keeping her own tone as reasonable as she can. “But I don’t want them to hurt your sister, either. I take it she isn’t actually working with you.”

“She doesn’t even know I’m here. She wasn’t even involved, and I never thought she would be, except we heard the military was there to investigate, and that Saypuri rat visited her.” Shara would like to be pleased that her very public attempt at getting the murderers’ attention was successful, but just at the moment she finds it difficult. “Did she buy it from him?”

“Listen to me,” Shara says. “I have resources, and I can protect Valeriya. I can protect you as well, if you want out, but I need to get back to Voortyashtan to do it.”

“I do not want out!” Matsanin says. “I’ve wanted this for thirty years, and we were so close—but first I need to know she is safe.”

Shara opens her mouth to ask another question, but just then Matsanin freezes. Heavy footsteps are coming down her passage, and after a moment another lantern appears, bobbing up and down in time with a determined stride.

“Matsanin,” says a woman’s voice. “I should have expected this. You’ve done enough damage for one night. Get out.”

Matsanin leaves without protest. Shara backs away from the door at the rattle of a keyring. It swings open to admit two people carrying a lantern. They do not close the door behind themselves, having judged her, quite rightly, not to be a physical threat.

One of them, Shara thinks a woman, stands near the door, while the man walks closer to loom over her. Shara ignores him. “Evgenia Kolanova?” she asks. “I’ve read a great deal about you.”

Neither of them responds. Instead the woman passes a dully gleaming object to the man, who shoves it in Shara’s face. When she reaches to touch it, he shoves her, too. “That is not for your filthy hands.”

“I can’t see very well,” Shara says. “If you want me to look at something, you should have brought my glasses.”

“Look closer,” the man says, putting the object right in front of her eyes. She blinks, and the twin of the gauntlet she saw in Idraztsova’s bedroom swims into fuzzy view. Of course, there are two. Shara has not had time to think this through, and her head hurts, but of course. Validesh had one, and he must have given it to Idraztsova. Lenya Aloshti would have had the other, and she gave it to—Sarbolin? Or would have, but the Kyrga got wind of it, and—

The Kyrga are not interested in waiting for her to work this out. “Where,” the man asks, “is the other one?”

Shara is not afraid she will give anything up. She has withstood interrogation several times, the first and most difficult of which was at the hands of her own trainers, and there is not the slightest chance a handful of half-literate mountain men can break her if the Ministry did not. They will not get a word out of her if she doesn’t choose to give it to them.

They are certainly planning to kill her, though, and Shara finds—somewhat to her surprise—that she is absolutely terrified of this.

She has long since accepted the possibility that she might die for Saypur. She has come very close, once or twice, and more than a handful of times she has been aware a slip on her part could paint a target on her back, in far-flung Continental backwaters where she had practically nothing in the way of security. But buried deep beneath a mountain, the blurry form of a hardened murderer looming over her, she is uncomfortably aware that no-one in the world knows where she is, and that there is very little reason for these people to keep her alive.

And that making a rational decision to give your life for your country is not the same thing as feeling the blade that will do the job press into the skin above your pulse.

Her mouth is dry. She swallows, feels the knife’s edge shift against her throat. She might, still, talk her way out of this. She does not want to send them anywhere near Valeriya’s—she is confident Sigrud will be looking for her, and since he has recovered from his time in the prison she has seen enough to believe he can handle a few of these men, but if they go in force she does not want his death on her hands. And that would only delay her own execution. “I don’t have it.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

If she dies here, Shara thinks, Auntie Vinya will see this man hunted down and destroyed. It may not even be out of personal sentiment, or at least not entirely. The death of an operative may be an acceptable loss, but someone is always made to pay for it. Not that this will do Shara herself any good. “It’s in Voortyashtan,” she says, thinking furiously. 

“At Idraztsova’s?”

Shara is not at her best, and even then her mind is best suited to strategy, to careful organization of the facts at hand with time to lay out a plan that’s as close to foolproof as it can be. These are not optimal conditions. But she takes the path of least resistance and seizes on what would be the truth, if she had another day to arrange it. “It’s in a safety deposit box.”

The pressure on her throat relaxes just a little. She wishes she could see his face more clearly. Maybe it is better that she can’t. “A what?”

“A safety deposit box,” she says again, her voice a little firmer. “In a bank.” The thought of it seems sterile and otherworldly in this dark place of stone and steel and blood.

“How civilized,” says Kolanova, amused. “Which bank?”

“I’ll have to take you there,” Shara says. It seems too much to hope that they will be _that_ stupid, but she can think of no reason not to try. “They won’t open it if I’m not there in person.”

There is a short silence. Her breaths are very shallow, and she feels lightheaded. At least she does not have to worry about swimming vision.

“She’s lying,” Kolanova says. Curt, disgusted. “Ten to one she doesn’t even have it.”

“I told you not to send Matsanin,” the man says, half-turning. His knife shifts. Shara considers trying to slide away, of slamming all her weight into the arches of his feet or kneeing him in the groin like the Ministry taught her, of attempting to overbalance him the way Sigrud showed her after those thugs tried to manhandle her in Ahanashtan. But she does not consider it for very long. “It’s probably at Idraztsova’s place, and they missed it.”

“It can’t be helped now. If it’s there, we’ll find it. We don’t need some half-sized Saypuri whore to—” Whatever she was going to say is swallowed in—Shara wants to call it a roar, but that implies sound more than anything else, and what happens in that moment is a long, low vibration the very least of which comes through her ears. The walls tremble, her stomach shakes like one of Valeriya’s specialty cocktails, and when it is over it leaves an odd buzzing in her skull.

“What the hells?” Kolanova demands, after they have all caught their breath. It is exactly what Shara is thinking, but the other woman sounds angry and just a little frightened, rather than surprised. “Those idiots know not to go down there.”

And for the first time, Shara wonders whether their hiding place was chosen for something other than lack of accessibility.

“Someone should check on them,” the man says. Shara has the distinct impression he does not want to be that someone.

Kolanova has regained her composure. “Yes,” she says. “But we’re wasting our time with this one. We have bigger things to worry about. Give me that, it’s not for your hands, either.”

“What should I do with her?”

“What do you think?”

She disappears, leaving Shara and the bearded man alone in the flickering lantern-light. “What was that thing?” she asks, because it can’t hurt to try.

She feels, rather than sees, his attention shift reluctantly back to her. “Oh, fuck it,” he says, “she’s right.” And he drops the knife, not to release her but to swing his arm back at the level of her gut.

 _Wait_ , Shara starts to say, though for what she is not certain. She has half a second to realize what is about to happen to her, and then something warm and wet spatters the exposed skin of her throat, and the hand on her arm falls away.

The man crumples forward, taking her with him. His weight comes crushing down on her, forcing the air out of her lungs in a muffled cry. She does not understand what has happened, lies there unable even to think about moving as the man dies on top of her. She hears three swift footsteps scrape against the stone floor, and then his weight is gone and she is being lifted to her feet.

She strikes out in panic, aiming with the flattened side of her hand at what she thinks is the throat of the person grasping her under the arm. She makes contact, but it gets her no more than a grunt of mild surprise. Except it’s a grunt she recognizes.

“Are you hurt?” Sigrud asks, and her legs buckle in relief.

“How did you find me?” she asks, when she can speak.

“Idraztsova. Are you hurt?”

This time she shakes her head. “Knocked around. I lost my glasses.”

“We’re leaving now.” It doesn’t really need saying, because he has her under the arm and is already hauling her toward the door.

“Wait,” Shara says, and is glad to find she has enough control over her voice to stop him in his tracks. She wishes she could see his face more clearly. “There are at least a dozen soldiers out there.”

“Not anymore.”

“But they’ll have guards up! I heard them as we came in. Four posted out at the entrance—how did _you_ get in?” Sigrud is pulling her along, out into the pathway. It’s dark enough that her missing glasses are irrelevant. She stumbles over something long and solid, with a bit of give to it, and nearly asks before she realizes it must be Kolanova herself. Shara sucks in a startled gasp, and he waits for her to regain her footing. “Sigrud,” she says, pulling herself upright by the sleeve of his coat, “before we reach the surface, we’re going to meet a significant number of people carrying heavy weaponry. We need to figure out how to deal with them.”

“I have done that.”

“What do you mean?” She’s interrupted by that vast, rumbling roar. If anything it sounds even worse outside, as the echoes come rolling down the passage. “What in _hells_ is that?”

“I believe,” says Sigrud thoughtfully, “I also did that.” Shara remains stock-still, listening as the echoes fade, until he adds—with the slightest edge lying under his voice—“As I said, we should leave now.”

“Very well,” Shara says, reaching to adjust glasses that aren’t there. She hitches her shoulders back. “Can you get us out of here?”

She stumbles over more bodies on the way up. This time she doesn’t ask, just accepts them as a fact along with Sigrud’s presence. Explanations can wait. They keep moving upward at a gradual incline. Her legs wobble dangerously, but she couldn’t topple over if she wanted to, not with Sigrud’s hand tight under her arm. At one point he stoops down to pick up a lantern lying next to one of the bodies she’s not asking about, and the going becomes a little easier after that. Then they emerge into the main cavern, and he stops. She does, too, mostly by dint of stumbling into him.

The lantern swings crazily from his hand, tossing blurry shadows up and down the walls. “What is it?” Shara asks in an undertone. He makes a quick motion. She can’t actually see it, but she takes it as an instruction to shut up and does so.

She hears the squeak of the lantern on its handle before he stills it, the quiet huff of her own breath. Sigrud’s she cannot hear at all; he is a vast silence beside her. Somewhere not too far away is the drip of a stalactite working its centuries-long way toward the floor of the cave.

Somewhere beyond that, if she strains her ears, is the low skitter of feet against stone. And these are no human feet.

“I regret to say,” Sigrud says at last, “it’s between us and the door.”

A slow prickle travels up her spine. She keeps her own voice light. “What is _it_ , exactly?”

He gives the question due consideration. “I am not sure. I did catch a glimpse, when I let it out. It has eight legs.”

“Eight?”

“Yes.” A long pause. She imagines him straining his eye through the dark. “I thought at first it was covered in hide, but I think it is—not that. What is the word? Like a fish.”

“Scales,” Shara supplies.

“Yes,” he agrees, “covered in scales, like a fish. It has a thin body, twice as long as a man is tall. And a face like a hawk's."

"A raptor's face," she whispers, mostly to herself, "and eight legs—“ Piecing together the truth of all the stories would be a lifetime's work in and of itself. Shara has collected her share, and she has dispatched the odd Divine creature in her seven years on the Continent. She probably knows as much about Divine zoology as anyone this side of the South Seas. She may be bruised and half-blind, but this she can do.

“The records say Jukov once presented Voortya with a gift," she says, "a creature that slept in the heart of a mountain." Yes, she remembers now. "When she wore the gauntlets, it bent to her will."

There comes a low, hissing rattle from the thing in the shadows. "It doesn't seem to be bending," Sigrud says.

Shara swallows. "I expect you need both of them. You didn't happen to bring the one I left at Idraztsova’s?”

"No."

"All right," she says. "Here's the thing: I think it's called a _hasvad_."

"I am reassured," Sigrud says flatly, “to know the name of the thing that is going to eat us."

"If I'm right, it doesn't eat people."

"That body behind us is missing an arm and most of its face."

Shara is suddenly very glad she's not wearing her glasses. "Correction, it doesn't eat living people. It's a scavenger, usually shy unless it’s provoked. It won't attack us out of hunger." Out of sheer bad temper, maybe. The records are less clear on that.

“I do not think they were feeding it very well.”

Shara reconsiders, trying not to think about what Kolanova meant to do with her body. “Well. Maybe if it is _very_ hungry. But, sleeping as it does beneath the mountain, it also possesses certain—qualities.”

“Such as?”

“Its breath can make your blood boil, for a start.”

“Interesting.” He does not sound interested, or even particularly worried. “How do I kill it?”

“Unfortunately, it has impenetrable hide,” Shara says, after deciding to take this matter-of-fact offer in stride. “Unless you happen to have a spearhead carved of obsidian on you.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “What do you keep in this thing?” And he presses her leather bag into her hands.

“Oh!” Shara cries. “Why didn’t you _say_ \--” But then the _hasvad_ moves, and Sigrud all but _picks her up_ and shoves her out of the way, throwing the lantern in the other direction as he does so.

The lantern goes dark in a shower of shattered glass. Shara already has the bag open, feeling through the bottles and packets she arranged so carefully that afternoon. Sigrud crouches over her, his massive frame between her and what she assumes is the _hasvad_ investigating the broken lantern, and incidentally blocking what light she might have gotten from the guttering oil lamps along the far wall. She cannot breathe through her nose, much less smell, so she uncorks one bottle, wets the tip of her smallest finger and dips it in. Cardamom. She tosses it back in, tries another. Taste goes with smell, though, and she is not quite certain, so she waves the open bottle under Sigrud’s nose. “Is that paprika?”

“I don’t—” He lets out a violent sneeze. Shara hunches protectively over the spices.

Somewhere in the dark, the _hasvad_ lets out a roar.

This time there are no intervening walls and caverns to absorb it, and the sound vibrates like a jackhammer against all her joints. When she can move again, she shoves the bottle of what she hopes very much is paprika into Sigrud’s hand. “I can’t see anything. Throw this in its face.”

“And this will not count as provocation?”

“I think it’s already been provoked,” she intends to say, but she is interrupted by another shattering roar, and when she opens her eyes Sigrud is gone. Shara feels exposed, feels a sudden pang of fear she has sent him off to get himself killed, but she has no time to consider it. She keeps rooting through the bag until she finds a larger jar that is definitely chili powder, then the large paper packet of salt she brought specifically to deal with any miraculous objects she might encounter at Valeriya’s. Salt is inimical to most of Jukov's workings and many of his creatures, as well, and may do some good here.

She hears a grunt, the tinkle of glass, and a low, animal squeal, then the skitter of feet. The chamber echoes so loudly she can’t tell where it’s coming from, and she can’t see anything useful.

“Did it work?” she calls.

“It didn't like that,” says Sigrud’s voice out of the darkness, and Shara lets out a low gasp of relief.

“Good.” She stands up, clutching the chili powder in her right hand. “Where is it?”

“Near the entryway.”

Not so good. “I have more pepper you can use,” she says. “I think we should try to leave if we can.”

“Give me the bottle. I’ll cover you.”

She takes one step in the general direction of his voice, stumbles. Regains her balance. “I think—I think I will need help. Sigrud, I really can’t see anything.”

He materializes beside her, surprisingly quiet for such a big man, and takes her hand with one of his, the spice jar with the other. Shara does not intend to clutch at him like a child, but all her pretensions to dignity dissolve when she hears the _hasvad_ slithering toward them. By that point Sigrud is practically dragging her in any case. 

Shara flinches as something long and gray comes flying at her. The _hasvad_ ’s tail, she realizes, just as Sigrud drops her hand, steps forward, and—she cannot _see_ , can do nothing but stand there and hold her bag as Sigrud lets out a louder grunt, as the _hasvad_ lets out another roar, and its blurred and writhing form seems to fly through the air. It lands with a low thud that is almost lost in the echoes of the roar. Sigrud grabs her again, and only then does she realizes he had it by the tail, actually took the creature in his hands and threw it aside.

It is a temporary measure, but it may be enough to give them time. He slows to uncap the jar, and she feels his body twist. The jar shatters, the _hasvad_ squeals again, and Shara is all but yanked off her feet as Sigrud pulls her toward the door.

They make it into the smaller, narrow passage Shara remembers. “Wait,” she gasps, and Sigrud slows. “The salt, take the salt. Sprinkle it across the entryway.”

He turns back to do this. Shara leans against the side of the tunnel, panting. After a moment she frowns and reaches down to examine the obstruction at her feet. Her hand touches stiff cloth, then something softer and stickier that takes the shape of a human face. She recoils in soundless horror.

“It’s done.” Shara turns toward Sigrud’s voice with a start. “Can we leave now?”

She nods, and he ushers her away.

It is still quite dark, but it is an unusually clear night with a bright moon, and outside she can see a little better than in the poorly-lit cavern. Still she reaches for the sleeve of Sigrud’s coat and holds on to keep herself from tripping over her own feet, or the uneven ground, or the bodies of the Kyrga warriors lying there.

“What happened here?” she asks when she can trust her voice.

Sigrud takes a moment to answer, as they pick their way up the winding trail. “I told you,” he says at last. “I dealt with them.”

Shara decides this is not the moment to work out what he means by this, or how she wants to react to what she suspects he means. Her fingers tighten on his sleeve. Neither of them says anything else, though Shara stifles the occasional gasp when the stones underfoot cut through the soles of her fur-lined slippers. At length they emerge from the narrow pass into the open road that runs from Voortyashtan all the way to the Kolkashtani mountains.

There is a car waiting for them. Sigrud opens up the rear door and waits for Shara to go inside. She is shivering quite badly by now. Sigrud takes his coat off and hands it to her before sitting down himself.

The person in the driver’s seat is leaning over the armrest. Shara peers back but cannot make out a face. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it out,” says Valeriya Idraztsova.

“I have seen worse,” Sigrud replies. “Take us back into the city, please.”

“Where?”

“The polis governor’s residence,” Shara says. “Please wake me when we’re there.” Sigrud’s coat swallows her up in warmth. She lets herself close her eyes and sag against his shoulder, sinking into a half-conscious daze as they wind back down the mountainside.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Shara sits in an armchair at the governor’s residence and bites the inside of her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. She thinks wistfully of the hot bath in her run-down apartment, then with a desperate longing of the warm night she imagines is falling across the South Seas in Ghaladesh, and finally with a more prosaic regret of the spare pair of glasses in her office in Ahanashtan. The last thought turns her mind to logistics. She can send a telegram as soon as the embassy begins to stir, but the glasses will take a day or two to arrive, and there is a great deal to be done in that time.

Practicality triumphs, as she knew it would. Shara pulls herself together and turns her best incisive gaze on Idraztsova, who is a blurry form in the chair opposite her.

“I found in your bedroom wall an artifact of extraordinary Divine significance,” Shara says. “Not to mention a shelfful of books and half a dozen lesser artifacts. The possession of any one of those would be a severe violation of the Worldly Regulations.” The incisive gaze is, of course, entirely for show. Shara has to resist the temptation to squint; she would give a great deal to read Idraztsova’s expression right now. “In addition, you were able to lead Sigrud straight to the hiding place of an army of religious fanatics who in addition to their overtly militant activities are known to have murdered at least three individuals, including your employee, Dmitry Sarbolin.”

Shara has not yet had time to send for fresh clothing, but she has washed the blood and grime from her face and exchanged Sigrud’s coat for one belonging to the Chief Diplomat’s secretary. Sigrud’s had been laughably big on her, and half soaked in blood besides, but Shara is tempted to ask for it back. She feels oddly exposed, even with Sigrud himself sitting silently in a corner of the room where he can watch Idraztsova. Shara places her hands on the armrests and sharpens her voice, trying for a little less of the academic. “I came here to investigate those murders. At this point I would be more than justified in arresting you for complicity in all of them, as well as for flagrant infraction of the WR on multiple counts, and—” Here she drops back into clinical, dispassionate tones. “—if my reasoning is correct, of conspiring to unleash a Divine monster on unspecified targets.”

“Who _are_ you?” These are the first words Idraztsova has spoken since being escorted into this back office. Shara has considered offering her coffee or tea, assuming the governor’s staff can scare up a decent cup even at this hour of the morning, but decided against it.

Shara’s mouth tightens in a brief smile. “That is not what we are here to discuss.”

“I’m not a conspirator. I had no idea why Dmitry was killed,” Idraztsova says. “If I’d known, I—but I really had no idea. I hope you’ll believe that much.” She speaks with more resignation than conviction.

“Convince me.” Shara sits back in the armchair.

Idraztsova pauses. “Dmitry—he was a friend of my husband’s. He came to work for us after we bought the club, and he stayed after Artur died. He knew us very well, and I trusted him enough to let him act for me in other areas.” She pauses again, as though expecting a question or prompt, but Shara just waits her out. “I am a collector.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“I am a collector,” Idraztsova clarifies, “of—how did you put it? Artifacts of Divine significance. Dmitry often made purchases for me, and he had contacts that brought him in the way of interesting items. When he died, he was investigating a lead from one of those contacts. I had no reason to think—” Her voice has grown thick, and she has to clear her throat. “There is always risk, buying on the black market, but he was in a bad part of the city. I’ve lost friends to senseless violence before. I had no reason to think he died because he worked for me.”

“You never wondered?”

“Of course I did, at first, but then the military tried to arrest the man who killed him. I heard what happened and that the Kyrga were responsible. I thought he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But you knew who the Kyrga were.”

Shara thinks Idraztsova shrugs. “They make trouble. People talk about the sort of trouble they make.” Idraztsova sounds dismissive.

“But you knew how to find them when Sigrud asked.”

“He didn’t ask me to find them, he asked me to find Ludmila. He said they killed the man who sold me the gauntlet. When I realized what they wanted and that Ludmila was with them, I had a good idea where they would be. But that was because—I’ll need to go farther back to explain.”

Shara nods. “To around 1672, I imagine.”

“What—how in hells did you work that out?” Idraztsova sounds a little impressed and a little afraid. Shara flicks a hand to one side. “Yes. To around 1672. I was twelve. My sister Ludmila was seven. We’d grown up playing in the foothills, and when a Saypuri woman came looking for guides in the mountains, our parents let us go.”

“Vallaicha Thinadeshi,” Shara says.

“Yes. It was easy work. Fun, even, to show her and the people she brought with her all the ways we knew through the passes. They would carry in instruments and spend hours setting them up, and Ludmila and I could do what we liked while they were busy. We liked to sing. Looking back, I know we could have gotten the whole family arrested under the WR, because most of the songs we knew were hymns. I suppose the Saypuris didn’t understand the invocations.”

“Censoring wasn’t enforced very effectively during that time,” Shara says, “particularly in the north. But you’re probably right that they didn’t realize what they were hearing. After the WR were passed people took to editing the lyrics, removing names, replacing specific references to Voortya with oblique ones.”

“You’re very free with her name.”

“The Worldly Regulations do not apply on Saypuri soil,” Shara says, “and so not in the governor’s residence. We can say what we like here. But why is the singing important?”

“It got Thinadeshi and her surveyors killed.” Shara blinks in surprise, then thinks better of interrupting. “It was a song about walking the mountain passes at dawn while the sun turns the valleys as red as blood. I found the true lyrics much later. In the original version, the singer walks through the mountains and emerges into a valley the morning after a battle, and finds the path strewn with the dead. It gives thanks to Voortya for victory and asks her to bless the ground.” She pauses again, not for prompting but to gather her thoughts. “We were about three verses in when the ground cracked open and a monster crawled out.”

“The _hasvad_ followed Voortya, but not into battle itself,” Shara says, remembering. “It would come after a victory and clear the field of enemy dead. You must have hit on a hymn to summon it.”

“Again, something I realized much later. We didn’t stop to wonder where it had come from. We didn’t even stop to see what happened to Thinadeshi and her surveyors. We just ran, and we didn’t stop until we were home.” She goes on, quietly, “We told our parents the truth. When the Saypuris came looking for Thinadeshi we told them where we had seen her last, but not why we had left her. I heard that they never found the bodies.”

 _Aunt Vinya will be able to close that old case,_ Shara thinks, though she knows this story will have to be heavily excised before it goes into any official records. “But later, you did work out what had happened.”

“It took years. At first we didn’t like to talk about it, Ludmila and I, not even to each other. When we were a little older it was easier because the whole thing seemed unreal, a dream rather than a memory. Soon I developed an interest in the hymns and was doing everything I could to track them down. I spent every cent I had on books, most of them forgeries—that black market has been around for a while, but back then I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Shara nods. She has seen it before—pockets of would-be devotees still exist across the Continent, people willing to risk the WR to practice in secret. Along with these come people willing to risk the WR and churn out false artifacts for profit.

“That was the start of my collection,” Idraztsova goes on. “Ludmila was as interested as I was, but for different reasons. She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Shara is thrown by the sudden change of subject, but the question was not for her. “Probably,” Sigrud says. His voice is flat and uninflected. “I killed ten, maybe eleven of them tonight. The _hasvad_ likely killed more, deliberately or not. But some of them would have run.”

“I have been assuming for years that she was dead,” Idraztsova says. Her voice sounds very distant. “I wonder—maybe it’s better not to know when it happened.”

Shara is about to say the military will certainly collect the bodies for identification. Then she remembers exactly how the _hasvad_ disposed of enemy soldiers, and she closes her mouth.

Idraztsova shifts in her chair. She sounds almost as weary as Shara feels. “It was about fifteen years ago when she left, soon after the Summer of Black Rivers. She was only twenty-four. She hated Saypur. I did, too, of course, but it was different for me—I loved the hymns for the songs themselves, for their history, for what they had been to my family. Ludmila loved them for Voortya, and when Saypur started enforcing the regulations more actively in the north she joined a war band and left for the fighting in Bulikov. She wanted my blessing, but I refused. I never heard from her again.” Shara holds back a wince. The traditional blessing of an older female relative was a requirement for Voortyashtani warriors leaving home, back when those traditions were kept.

“Her name was on a list of known Kyrga members,” Shara says. “We don’t have much information about her movements, but she joined them at least three years ago and took part in several raids near the Kolkashtani border. We’ll probably never know for certain, but it’s likely she was the one who told them about the _hasvad_. How much did she understand about it?”

“As much as I had worked out from the songs and books I found before she left,” Idraztsova says. “How to call it, what it did, how it was controlled.”

“The gauntlets.”

Idraztsova’s head dips forward. “I hadn’t thought about them in years. After Dmitry died it was more difficult to arrange purchases, but I still had contacts. Word gets around when something interesting comes on the market, and of course I recognized the description. I got in touch with the man who had it—what was his name? The one who strangled himself.”

“Odry Validesh.”

“Yes. I met him at the club.”

“That was a risk.” This, unexpectedly, is from Sigrud.

“To my freedom, maybe—not to my life. If I’d met him anywhere else that might not have been the case. I met him, I inspected the gauntlet, and I paid him.” Idraztsova hesitates. “I also ensured he wouldn’t remember the interview.”

“You drugged him?”

“Yes. I needed some insurance, and without Dmitry as a go-between—but I didn’t kill him. I didn’t know he was dead, or even who he was, until those investigators came. I assume that was your doing? Even then I didn’t connect it to Ludmila until _he_ told me—” She turns toward Sigrud. “I wasn’t working with her. I haven’t spoken to her in her a decade, and if I’d known what she wanted I’d—well. I don’t know what I would have done, but I wouldn’t have helped her get it.”

“She wanted the gauntlets back,” Shara says; and then, moved to kindness, “and to protect you. The Kyrga just wanted the gauntlets. Or rather, they wanted the _hasvad_ , and a way to control it once they have it.”

“I don’t even know if they would still work,” Idraztsova said. “None of Voortya’s miracles do. Believe me, I have tried.”

“Whether they work or not, the _hasvad_ is certainly capable of doing a great deal of damage, which I assume is why the Kyrga were so interested.” She looks at Sigrud, or where she imagines Sigrud to be. “We need to rest, but as soon as we’re properly prepared we have to go back and dispose of it.”

“Dispose—” Idraztsova starts up in her seat. “You want to kill it? I don’t give a damn for your Worldly Regulations; it is a Divine creature of Voortya, sacred to half the Continent, and it slept peacefully for decades until—”

“Yes, until,” Shara says. “Do sit and think, really think, about what would happen if it was set loose on Voortyashtan. Or what do you imagine the Kyrga intended to do with it?”

“Shara is right,” Sigrud says, coming up beside Idraztsova’s chair. “That is not a thing that should be in this world.”

Idraztsova looks at him and asks, “Is this part of our bargain, as well?”

“What bargain is that?”

“Yes,” Sigrud says to Idraztsova. Then, to Shara, “She did not want to show me where her sister would have gone, if she was with the people who were looking for the gauntlets. I offered her immunity.”

“You did what?”

“Immunity,” Idraztsova repeats, “for any violations of the Worldly Regulations I may have committed. It didn’t seem much to trade for your life.”

Shara decides to set this aside for later thought. She shakes her head. “The point is, we need to kill it, and that impenetrable hide is going to make things difficult.”

“I still don’t know who you are,” Idraztsova says, “but on the off chance you have the authority to commandeer any of the soldiers who are always milling about here, and if you really insist on doing this, I imagine you could blow it up.”

“Impenetrable being a reference to blades, yes. But I have a mandate to keep situations like this as quiet as possible. I’d rather the army didn’t know exactly what we were doing.” Shara tries to dredge up all the odd references to the _hasvad_ she’s read through the years. “An obsidian blade is said to work, but it’ll be a job finding one.”

Sigrud makes a disapproving noise. “Brittle,” he says, without further comment.

“I _can_ help you there,” Idraztsova says, reluctantly. “Obsidian can mean the stone, but it also refers to a method of treating steel. Not actually miraculous, but damned hard to do. It comes out looking quite black, hence the name.”

“And you just happen to have a blade treated like this, tucked away in your bedroom?” Shara asks.

“I still dream about that thing,” Idraztsova says, no longer indignant in its defense. “I sleep better with that knife close.”

Shara nods, then hesitates. “We need someone to wield it. Sigrud—”

“Yes, I will kill it for you,” he says.

“Excellent,” Shara says, a little faintly. “That all seems to be in order. Now I am going to have a bath, and then to bed, and when I wake up we will plan this in more detail.” She stands, wobbles, and reaches for the back of her chair. “And I should send for some spare glasses, but they’ll never get in time. I don’t like the idea of doing this blind.”

Idraztsova rises. “I can help with that, too.” She raises her hand to her mouth, then reaches out. Shara jerks back, but not quickly enough; Idraztsova’s thumb and forefinger, slightly damp, land on each of her eyelids.

“What—” Shara starts, furious, but then she blinks. And she can see.

Idraztsova’s face is the first thing that comes clear. Pale, round, framed by long hair; all of it is familiar, but Shara has never seen it quite like this, with darts of orange fire licking around the edges. When she opens her mouth it is black and fathomless inside, until she speaks and it fills with the flame of her breath. “Did it work?”

Shara sits very still. “What did you do to me?”

“A minor miracle,” Idraztsova says very calmly. “One of Olvos’. It’s convenient for a number of things, but inconvenient in that you can’t perform it on yourself. It did work, though?”

“I—” Everything is perfectly visible, but not in quite the way she expects. She looks around the office, sees crisp white lettering flare up on the spines of books, sees the dingy wallpaper fade oddly into the background. She turns to Sigrud. He has changed in much the same way as Idraztsova, except that the palm of his right hand burns with light. Shara knows why, and the knowledge makes her dizzy. “Yes. How long will this last?”

“A day or so.”

“Well,” Shara says inadequately. She resists the polite impulse to thank Idraztsova. “We should waste no time, then. I’ll have a bed made up for you here.” With a guard at the door, she does not say. “Sigrud, may I have a moment?”

They move into the hall together, Shara’s stride lengthening as she gains confidence in this odd new vision of hers. When they are far enough away that Idraztsova cannot overhear, she says, “I don’t know if I can keep that bargain of yours. The Ministry didn’t approve any immunity, and those approvals aren’t up to me.”

“She saved your life.” It is profoundly disconcerting to watch him talk. She averts her eyes from the flames in Sigrud’s mouth, then from his hand.

“ _You_ saved my life,” Shara corrects him. “She helped.”

“So.”

“Thank you, by the way.”

“You have no need to thank me. But you will keep this bargain.”

“Why?”

“Because there is no reason to lock her up for such care of her people’s history,” Sigrud says. “And because you know that. Tell your Ministry what you have to.”

Shara is too tired to explain her Aunt Vinya to him. Instead she waits the space of a few paces before asking, “You killed ten people tonight?”

“Or eleven. Does that bother you?”

“Yes. I don’t know. Probably not as much as it should. It’s more—I don’t understand how you could. They were armed.”

“They weren’t expecting me, and I am very good at death,” Sigrud says, as Shara would say she is very good at cooking. “It is why you hired me.”

That is not precisely true, but Shara is incapable of arguing the point just now. She nods. Sigrud takes her elbow when she stumbles, his hand steady but gentle, and she lets him lead her to her room.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Lt. Endaisha is accustomed to being told what to do and to telling others what to do. He does not expect his subordinates to ask unnecessary questions, and no more does he trouble his superiors with his curiosity.

That does not mean he is not curious when a slight young woman with thick glasses arrives at the governor’s residence, using a name that is clearly an alias and in the company of a Dreyling giant. He details the history of the Kyrga war-band at her request, and he helps her create the identity she needs. He fetches a body from the morgue at the Voortyashtan Police Department, and then he raids a popular nightclub and gives her the results, all without question.

When she comes to him sporting a black eye and requesting the services of his entire platoon, along with all the explosives they have convenient, he says, “At once, ma’am,” and he makes arrangements. When he ushers her into his armored car and she is accompanied by that Dreyling giant and the owner of the raided nightclub, though, he goes so far as to raise an eyebrow.

They drive up into the mountains. Miss Joondi tells him where to park and gets out, asking him to wait with his platoon.

“We probably won’t need you,” she says, glancing at the Dreyling man, who looks bored. “But please be ready to act if we do.”

“Very well, ma’am,” he replies, then unbends enough to ask, “but how will we know?”

“Oh,” she says, “you’ll know.” And she leads her odd companions away up a narrow trail. Lt. Endaisha stares at her retreating back, then turns back to his soldiers to carry out his orders.

But that does mean he is not curious.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
“It wasn’t like this when I came here with Ludmila,” Idraztsova says, surveying the opening of the cave. “They must have carved it out.”

“I thought it looked older than that,” Shara says. “They could have rediscovered an existing substructure and rebuilt it. The _hasvad_ may have slept here whenever it wasn’t needed, waiting to be called.” As they grow closer, the cave looms suddenly in her Olvos-granted vision, the doorway a gaping black maw that glows a faint red.

There are no guards here now. All were killed or fled after Sigrud came that morning. Shara glances at Idraztsova, wondering whether on balance it would be better for Matsanin to be in the first group or the second.

Unchallenged, they step inside. Sigrud takes the lead, with Idraztsova and Shara at his back. Shara watches the walls of the corridor as they pass. Strange symbols leap out at her in bright, crisp lines, but when she reaches out to touch them she finds nothing carved into the rough stone. _Yes,_ she thinks, _definitely older._

They reach the point where Sigrud spread the line of salt. He bends down to inspect it, but Shara can already tell it is unbroken. A thin curtain of light spreads up from it, reaching eye-level before it fades. This is good. They will have a place to retreat if they need it, and if they fail horribly it is somewhat less likely the _hasvad_ will escape to cause trouble elsewhere. Shara kneels to fortify with a large jar of salt she brought specifically for this purpose, and when she is done the curtain looks much more substantial. She tucks the rest of the salt under her arm, just in case.

After that comes the wide and echoing cavern. The gas lanterns mounted on the walls have all burnt out, so Sigrud and Idraztsova raise their own hand lanterns. Shara finds she doesn’t need one. The rock formations are lined in red, and her depth perception is aided—oddly—by faint shades of orange cast over the stone. There are several mounds of deepest black lying on the floor. She looks, curious, and realizes these are the Kyrga who dies here. She looks away at once, not interested in finding out whether Olvos’ sight will show her the damage the _hasvad_ might have done while they were gone.

Of the _hasvad_ itself there is no sign. _Probably crawled off to sleep after a good meal_ , Shara thinks, feeling sick.

“Should we call it here?” Idraztsova asks.

“Sigrud?”

He looks around, then nods. “This is a good place for it. I will have room to move.”

Idraztsova looks at him, a little anxious. “You remember the words?”

He lifts both eyebrows. “Yes.” The summoning hymn is written for two voices, and as Shara cannot hold a tune to save her life the second part fell to Sigrud. He and Idraztsova practiced back at the governor’s residence. Watching that was one of the more surreal experiences Shara has had in Voortyashtan, which at this point is no small statement.

Sigrud turns back to Shara. “Stay behind us. If it recognizes that we have called it, we may be safe, but there is no guarantee for you.”

“I will,” Shara promises. She has recovered her satchel and stuffed it with large quantities of chili powder and paprika. In the legends she has read, pepper is for some reason inimical to the _hasvad_. She puts this eccentricity down to Jukov’s odd sense of humor. She lifts her left hand and waves it at Sigrud. “Besides, I have this.”

The gauntlet is a riot of color to her eyes, bright white with a play of indigo and blue-green in the shadows, each shard of ruby like a burning coal. Despite that, she does not really think it will work against the _hasvad_ so many years after Voortya's death, and the right-hand gauntlet is somewhere deep in the cave with Kolanova’s body. Still, an extra bit of insurance can’t hurt.

Sigrud gestures to Idraztsova, who nods. Shara can see that she is shaking, just a little, but when she hums out a starting pitch her tone is perfectly steady. At some unspoken signal, she and Sigrud begin.

This is the original version of the hymn, the one Idraztsova found in her research after her first encounter with the _hasvad_. It starts with the invocation, a litany of Voortya’s virtues: her strong right arm, her powerful left, the breadth of her shoulders and the keenness of her eyes. It thanks her for protection, then segues into a description of the recent battle, the poetry rendering bloodshed glorious rather than crude and bitter. It is the first time Shara has heard Idraztsova sing. Her voice rises in the melody, clear and unadorned, and even Shara with her musical idiocy knows to be impressed with the ease and controlled power in it. Sigrud provides a lower harmony, almost a drone, in a voice that is equal parts smoke and thunder. And she can _see_ their song. It curls out from their mouths in a pale fire, flaring to gold or orange on the higher notes and burning deep red on the low. The very air seems to boil before them.

Shara stares, fascinated and moved, and forgets to listen to the words. She even forgets to be afraid.

Then that low, almost soundless roar fills the cavern. The voices falter, but Idraztsova does not let it distract her for long. She picks up the tune again, driving it forward, and the _hasvad_ emerges into the cavern.

She can see it perfectly now, and it is as Sigrud described. Eight legs, long and spindly, with razor-sharp talons that send up orange sparks from the floor; a long, sinuous body covered with scales that shudder with color, like mother of pearl; a hawklike beak at the end of a long, cruel face. Its eyes are embers, and its breath is white hot.

It is moving slowly, though. She can see the way its belly sags, glutted with an unaccustomed meal. Sigrud sees it too, and without faltering in the song he steps forward, Idraztsova’s knife in his hand.

The _hasvad_ roars again. Sigrud sidesteps neatly, avoiding the boiling breath Shara warned him about. Its tail whips at him, and he ducks, then runs in close to its flank, giving up his harmony at last even as Idraztsova’s voice soars higher in a queer, whistling, wordless descant.

Shara’s ears are filled with the human and animal sounds, her eyes assailed by flame. She sucks in air, lightheaded, and presses the gauntleted hand to her mouth.

Sigrud reaches forward with the knife. It flashes in Shara’s vision, and then a great spout of white gushes from under Sigrud’s hand. The _hasvad_ lets out a long, piercing squeal of pain, and Sigrud darts away as it thrashes and writhes, flinging itself against the ground.

Idraztsova trails off, her mouth still open. Sigrud crouches at a safe distance, ready to dart back in if needed, but it does not appear this will be necessary. _That was anticlimactic_ , Shara thinks, but then the _hasvad_ was designed for the aftermath of battle, not battle itself.

Its blood spreads in pools and rivulets over the floor, cooling to orange and then red, smelling of liquid steel. When the body stills at last, the cavern is silent except for Sigrud and Idraztsova’s breathing. Shara notes distantly that Sigrud is barely winded, and Idraztsova still takes the deep, carefully paced breaths of a singer.

“Well done,” Shara says when she can trust her own voice. “Very well done. I think—I think the next thing is to dispose of the body, before we can call the soldiers in to clean up—everything else.”

“Will it burn?” Sigrud asks.

With his words, a gout of phantom flame bursts up from the _hasvad_. Shara blinks, and the fire fades. “Yes,” she says, “I believe it will.” She chokes down a hysterical giggle, not without effort. “Let’s do it quickly, though. I don’t want to leave poor Lt. Endaisha in suspense.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Afterward, they go to collect the rest of the artifacts from Idraztsova’s apartment.

Shara takes them out one by one, inspecting each and giving Sigrud a brief description. Sigrud, for once playing the actual secretary, writes them down in a comically small notepad and what she suspects is terrible handwriting. Idraztsova watches the whole procedure without comment, though Shara glanced her way early on and saw tears running down her face.

“Item eighteen,” Shara says, turning the slipper over. Olvos' sight is fading, but it still picks out the stitching and the scratches on the sole, and she thinks she can almost see the ghostly imprint of a foot. “A leather slipper, lined in red velvet, much worn, but otherwise in remarkable condition. Fourteenth century make, unless I miss my guess. Not, I believe, miraculous—or not anymore.” She sets the slipper in the lead-lined box she brought with her. “And that is everything.”

“Not quite.” Sigrud holds out the black knife, hilt first.

Shara shakes her head. The stench of molten blood still clings to her nostrils, though Sigrud has cleansed the blade. “That, at least, isn’t Divine in origin, and doesn’t even have particular religious significance. I suppose I could take it as evidence, but it’s not dangerous. Except for the obvious.”

Sigrud turns and offers the knife to Idraztsova, who has regained her composure. She puts up a hand as though to ward it off. “Please, keep it. I don’t need it now.”

“I am sorry,” Shara says, very gently. “I really can’t let you keep these things, you understand.”

“I understand that you think so,” Idraztsova says. She makes a small, abortive gesture. “It doesn’t matter. You will hold to our bargain?”

“I will do what I can,” Shara starts to say, but Sigrud interrupts.

“Yes.” His eye passes over Shara, and she sighs.

“I will be in touch as soon as I have news. About that, or about your sister. The soldiers are searching the caves.”

Idraztsova nods. “I suppose I should advertise for a new chef, then.” Her mouth twists, wry. “I will regret that. You are an excellent cook. I don’t suppose a change of career…?” Shara smiles, without much amusement. Idraztsova turns to Sigrud. “You, though. I don’t know what it is you do for her, or what ties you to the Saypuris. But if you want to stay, you would be—you would be very welcome.”

“Would I?” Sigrud asks. His voice is rough, and very low. He shakes his head. “Thank you. That is generous. But no. As you said, there are ties.”

Idraztsova gives him a curious, searching look. “I’m not sure that you were right, about the fire.”

He shrugs. “It is only a saying.” He reaches with his gloved right hand, which burns less brightly now in Shara’s eyes, and takes Valeriya’s hand in his own. He raises it to his lips, then releases it. Shara tries not to stare as he takes the lead-lined box from her hands and carries it outside to the embassy car waiting below. 

Shara clears her throat. Idraztsova tears her eyes from the door and says, “I would like you to leave now, if you would not mind.”

“Of course,” Shara says. She has set a guard in the street, but she does not think Idraztsova is a flight risk. “We will be in touch.”

When they return to the embassy, Shara’s vision has gone fuzzy again, and only the occasional lick of flame shows her she is about to run into something. Still, she makes it to her room without assistance. Sigrud follows with the box, now securely padlocked. “Thank you,” Shara says. “At the foot of the bed, I think. I’d rather not trust this to anyone else just yet. I’ll have it sent down to Ahanashtan with a special guard.” She sits on the edge of her bed. “That was a good offer.” Sigrud doesn’t reply. “You don’t have any interest in taking her up on it?”

“I have a job,” he says shortly. “Also I may have killed her sister.”

“That could lead to long-term difficulties,” Shara agrees. “But she seemed willing to overlook it in the shorter term. I don’t think a job is all she was offering. You can have the night off if you want it. The rest of the week, even.” There is a great deal of paperwork awaiting her, and she won’t need him for that.

Sigrud doesn’t look at her. “I have a wife.”

A wife he has not seen in over seven years, she does not need to say. A wife who has long believed him dead. Shara thinks carefully about how to phrase her next question. “And do you think she would ask you to give up companionship entirely?” She is not at all sure she has any right to ask this. “Do you expect her to do the same?”

“I swore an oath.” Olvos’ miracle is entirely faded now, and he is a fuzzy, unreadable outline beside her. “But I would not ask that of her.” He says nothing for a while. Sigrud has never asked Shara for any detail about Hild’s life since his family was smuggled out of the Dreyling lands, and Shara has only told him that she and their daughters are safe and well. He has never asked if she remarried. Shara would tell him, if he wanted to know, but this information she won’t volunteer unrequested.

Just when she thinks they’ve let the subject drop, he gets to his feet. “I hope she is not alone.” The warped floorboards creak under his weight as he crosses to the door.

“Good night,” Shara says to the empty room.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Two days later when Shara comes down to work, there’s a package waiting for her from the embassy in Ahanashtan. She unfolds her glasses and slides them on with a little sigh of relief. Then she looks at the items underneath, and the relief fades.

The package also contains a small tin of tea and a book. The tea is a smoky black, one of her favorite blends. The book is a slim volume in soft brown leather with its title and the author stamped out in red letters: _The Nature of Continental Art_ , by Efrem Pangyui. She flips to the flyleaf for just long enough to see the message in her aunt’s narrow handwriting, then sets the book down and turns her mind at last to the problem she’s been studiously avoiding: how to make a full report consistent with her professional obligations, while honoring Sigrud’s promise.

The truth is that she does not see Valeriya Idraztsova as a threat. If the woman harbored any violent ambitions against Saypur, she would have taken the opportunity to act on them. She was not the one to raise a war band in the Motsevek Hills; given the opportunity to control the _hasvad_ , she didn’t take it. And as much as her casual performance of a miracle might have raised Shara’s hackles, it was not after all a dangerous miracle.

 _Don’t be an idiot_. The thought sounds very like her aunt. _As though there are not a hundred ways a miracle like that could be used against Saypur’s interests. As though any miracle_ by its very nature _is not a threat to Saypur_.

Shara does not entirely disagree. But she is uncomfortably aware that she does not entirely agree, either. The Shara Komayd who set sail for the Continent seven years before would not have had a doubt in her mind, but that Shara had not signed away the freedom of students and socialites and janitors and pastry chefs who had done no more than dabble in the Divine. She had not buried operatives who had lost their lives for Saypur’s ill-defined and largely theoretical interests. She was not responsible for--was in no way responsible _to_ \--a Dreyling giant who told her simply that she would keep his word for him, and expected that it would be so.

Shara looks at the book and the tea tin on the desk, looks at the unfinished report lying beside them, and gets up to lock the door of her borrowed office. Then she crosses to the window.

As she licks the tip of her index finger and puts it to the glass, she blinks involuntarily, remembering Idraztsova’s touch on her eyelids. Shara sets the memory aside and concentrates until the wooden storm shutters on the other side of the windowpane are obscured by frost. The glass seems to warp beneath her touch, and the image of her aunt’s office swims into view.

Vinya looks up with a start. “Shara! I wasn’t expecting—what happened to your face?”

“I’m fine,” she says quickly, “don’t worry. My nose wasn’t even broken.”

“If you’re sure. It looks terrible, darling. I was hoping for a call, but not—this. Did you get my package?”

“I did, thank you. I’ve been waiting to get my hands on that book.”

“You don’t have it yet? I’m glad. I thought you might have ordered it already.”

“You can’t ship Pangyui’s work to the Continent,” Shara says. “Not through the usual channels, at least.”

“And I suppose it wouldn’t occur to my niece, who always works by the book, that she might make use of her position to get around those restrictions?” Her smile is fond. Shara tries to find it reassuring. “You could have called it research material, which I suppose it is in a way. Probably you could have put it on the Ministry’s expense account, and no-one would have looked twice. But no matter; I’m happy to use _my_ position in such a good cause.” Vinya’s position is immediately below that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself, and likely, if the whispers Shara hears in Ahanashtan are true, to rise in short order. “I hope you find it useful.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“I had your cable yesterday,” Vinya goes on. “I would call it more…evocative than informative. It did not mention your eye. But the operation was successful?”

“Very,” Shara says. “I’m writing the full report now.” It is so easy to mischaracterize the situations she encounters on the Continent, and so easy for those in Saypur to misunderstand, never having encountered the Divine. The last six years have taught her that the most common reaction to a Continental invoking the gods with real power is instant, thoughtless suppression. It is acknowledged that these people can be dangerous, and the response is swift. That response is bloodless, though: bureaucratic rather than emotional. The danger will not seem entirely real to Vinya, sitting in her office in Ghaladesh. “That’s why I decided to call you, actually.” She gathers herself, choosing her words carefully.

Before she can continue, Vinya says, “Oh yes, of course. You want to know about the orders I mentioned. They’re being finalized as we speak.”

It takes Shara a moment to understand. She has not forgotten, could not forget, Vinya’s promise of a change in scenery, but she buried it deep and did not think of it while dealing with Idraztsova and the _hasvad_. Now the hope wells up in her, driving the real purpose of her call from her mind. “Do you mean—Auntie Vinya. Do you really mean I can come home?” For a second she believes it.

Then Vinya blinks. “Home?”

And she is shattered, just like that. “You—you said I’d been on the Continent long enough. You said someplace warmer—”

“Oh!” Vinya says. “Oh, my love, that’s not what I meant. No, this is much more interesting. There is some odd activity in Qivos, and I need someone reliable there. I realize it isn’t your area of expertise, but I _do_ rely on you, and I think your perspective will be useful. I expect you’ll find it fascinating, and I hope you’ll have some time to relax, too. I hear wonderful things about the climate. Bring that secretary of yours if you like; he could probably do with some sun.”

Shara stares at her. It is a testament to her experience as an officer that there is some closed-off part of her still capable of being surprised she feels no urge to cry.

Vinya is waiting for a reply. When none comes, her face softens. “Oh, my darling niece,” she says gently, “did you really think—I am sorry, Shara. I didn’t realize were hoping for that. I can’t think why. Surely you don’t _want_ a desk job in Ghaladesh? What a waste of your abilities.”

“But I have asked you,” Shara says. She barely recognizes her own voice.

“Yes, I know. And I am trying, as I’ve told you before. But the time simply isn’t right. The Saypuris in Ahanashtan may have moved on, but here the National Party scandal is too fresh in everyone’s mind.”

“It has been six years, Auntie!”

“And party leadership is still in shambles,” Vinya says, an edge coming into her voice for the first time. “We are working to clean that up.” She softens again. “As you are working to clean up messes elsewhere, which Saypur needs you so desperately to do. A little longer, Shara. I promise I will send your transfer through the moment it’s possible.”

Shara swallows. Her hands are shaking, but when she replies she is proud that it comes out clearly. “Thank you. Please let me know. As soon as you can.”

“Of course,” Vinya says. Her hand reaches out and stops just short of the glass. “It _is_ good to see your face.”

“And yours, Auntie.”

“I should go—but happy birthday, my love, and do enjoy your gifts.” Her fingers touch the glass and wipe the miracle away.

It is some time before Shara remembers why she called Vinya in the first place. She puts her head out the door and calls for some tea before turning her attention back to the report. After several false starts, she begins to write.


	4. Epilogue: The Reasonable Thing

The morning before they leave Voortyashtan, Shara borrows a car from the embassy.

She usually lets them supply a driver as well, but today’s destination merits some additional precautions. There is probably no risk—a chauffeur might raise his eyebrow, might add it to the list of Shara’s eccentricities and spread the word around, but there is almost no chance it could cause problems. Still, she didn’t get where she is without a healthy respect for redundancy in security measures.

Sigrud does not raise an eyebrow, even when she asks him to join her well before dawn. He settles into the passenger’s seat without comment. When they reach the city limits and it becomes clear they will be some time, he produces Valeriya’s little black knife and a small, smooth block of wood and begins shaving feathery blond curls into the footwell. Shara thinks of the low-level embassy employee who will have to clean the carpet and winces. She’ll arrange some form of compensation before she goes.

He doesn’t say anything when they head out into the countryside. For the first hour or so, they follow the road east to the mountains, but before the ground has risen more than a few hundred yards they turn away into the lowlands. By that time the sun has risen in a reluctant dawn. He sits up straighter in the seat beside her—the whole cabin creaks as he does so—and she watches him look out the window out of the corner of her eye.

“I spoke to my aunt earlier this week,” she says. He grunts. “I won’t be in Ahanashtan long. I may not get back to the continent itself for some time, actually.”

Now he’s looking at her instead of the patchy, snow-covered firs. “She’s bringing you back to Saypur?”

Her hands tighten on the wheel, but she is proud of the matter-of-fact way she corrects him. “Qivos.”

She can feel his eye boring into the side of her head. Shara hasn’t told him how it pains her, not to know when she’ll be allowed home; she has never told anyone, not even Vinya, quite how desperately she wants it. She is surprised to realize that if she told anyone, it would be Sigrud. But then, he has been in exile about as long as she has, with even less hope of returning. He probably does not need to be told.

The quiet scrape of a blade against wood picks back up again. “I sailed there, once.”

“I’ve never been. It should be interesting.”

“Call it what you like,” he says.

“Care to make the trip a second time?”

“I told you,” he says, the blade never pausing. “I have a job. Turned down a good offer to keep it.”

“You did, at that,” Shara agrees. They say no more on the subject.

The road—more of a gravel track, at this point—winds downhill, and the landscape opens up into uneven strips of winter-barren farmland punctuated by lopsided cairns. Shara slows to a crawl when they come upon a small herd of shaggy goats, then again when a larger group of reindeer pauses at the side of the road to watch them go by before trotting back up toward the mountains. They pass through a village and up a long rise, and when they reach the crest of the slope Shara pulls the car to one side and shuts it down.

On their left, to the northeast, the border foothills begin. Well beyond them rise the impossibly high peaks of the Dreyling lands; in the morning’s dim and misty light they are only suggestion above the horizon, but she remembers that you can just see their outlines scraping the sky on a rare clear day. Ahead are the Kolkashtani mountains, lower and rolling, rooted deep in the earth. And on the right—

“Why are we here?” Sigrud asks, but she thinks maybe he already knows.

“I thought you might want the chance to see this.” He looks out the window into the valley, where a turf-roofed farmhouse is tucked between the narrow fields. A plume of smoke rises from the chimney. “This is where your wife and daughters lived for six years, until I found them.”

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he opens the door and gets out. She watches him walk to the craggy edge of the slope and stand there for a few long moments; then he settles down on a low stone mile marker. When the pipe emerges from his coat pocket, she leans back in her seat and pulls out the book Aunt Vinya sent her.

The heat of the engine fades quickly, but Shara planned to be here for a while. She is pleasantly surprised to find the tea she packed in a military thermos is still quite warm, and she sips it slowly as she turns the pages of Pangyui’s book with clumsy gloved fingers. She has reached the third chapter when Sigrud rejoins her.

She takes her time marking her place, and then she sets the book aside. “She’s no more alone than you are,” Shara says to the steering wheel.

Sigrud clears his throat. “Thank you.”

Shara nods. “I wrote my report,” she says. “I included all the necessary details. Including, of course, a list of the Divine objects the Kyrga had recovered and were keeping in that cavern, and a list of the things I found in Idraztsova’s apartment.” She hesitates. “I did not think it quite necessary to distinguish between the two lists, however. They’ll wind up in the same inventory in any case.” This is not out of disappointment with Vinya, she tells herself. It is simply the reasonable thing to do.

She risks a sideways glance and sees Sigrud smile. It is faint and short-lived, but it happens all the same. Shara turns the key, and the engine coughs back to life.

When they pull up outside the embassy, he leans forward and places a small wooden carving on the dashboard. Shara smiles—it is not precisely like the _hasvad_ , but she sees the monster clearly enough in the stylized, lizardlike coils and the cruel beak. She picks it up and runs her thumb along its curves.

“Qivos?” Sigrud asks.

“Qivos,” she agrees. “I’ll send for our bags. We have a train to catch.”


End file.
